“I’ve got something of yours,” he said, reaching into his breast pocket. “I was going to send it to you, but I kept forgetting or putting it off.” He pulled out an envelope, on the back of which was scribbled a sonnet. McCall took it and examined it in surprise.
“Why, that’s your envelope. Your name on it. Oh, now I see. Where’d you get hold of that?”
He laughed.
“You didn’t need to bother about it. I copied it. Yes, I remember I borrowed the envelope from you one day at the hospital, when I was short of paper. ‘The aged pilgrim hastens on the road.’ That’s the sonnet. I read it to Meadows, she thought it was rather pretty and I gave it to her.”
Robert felt himself choking.
“You—you—didn’t write it to her. It wasn’t anything more than, than—”
“What are you staring at me for? You mean was I in love with her?”
“Yes! Yes!”
McCall laughed.
“Why now, where’d you get that idea?”