“Of course I told him that.”
“But did you make it perfectly clear to him?”
“I tried to, dear.”
“Tell me what you said! Tell me the rest of the letter.”
And so he recited it, as well as he could, while she listened, breathless with dismay. “How could you!” she cried.
Then she read over Mr. Harding’s letter once more. “You see,” she said; “he was simply dazed. He didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what to think.”
“He’ll get over it in time. He had to know, somehow.”
“But why did he have to know? Why couldn’t things have stayed as they were?”
“But my dear, you are in love with the man, aren’t you?”
“But I don’t want to marry him, Thyrsis! I don’t—I don’t love him enough.”