“If you still wish to find out their address, the quickest way would be to write to your friend's home. Merton told me that you lived for a year with his wife's people in Hampshire or Dorset.”
“Yes, in Wiltshire. But I know that Constance has not corresponded with her mother since her marriage. Perhaps you are right in what you said, Mr. Eden, that they wish—not to know me any longer.”
He turned away from the wistful, questioning look in her eyes, and only remarked, “I shall find it hard to forgive them this.”
“But I can't believe that Constance would do anything unkind,” she replied, somewhat illogically.
“No. But Constance is not herself—her real self now, she is Merton's wife.”
“Then you think that Constance—yes, perhaps you are right”; and then in a pathetic tone she added, “I have no friend now.”
“Do not say that, Miss Affleck! Do you not remember that on the occasion of our first meeting you promised to regard me as a friend?”
“Yes, I do, and I feel very grateful for your kindness to me. When I said that I meant a lady friend.... That is such a different kind of friendship. And—and you could never be like one of the two friends I have lost.”
“Two, Miss Affleck! I did not know that you had had the misfortune to lose more than one.”
“The first was the lady I lived with in London before I went to the Churtons'.”