"Yes, I might. There was a woman there—had been an officer's wife. She came to me and spoke rough truths about it—told me her notion of the tale in her own language. 'Put her away from you,' she said, 'and you won't get another like her, and won't deserve her!' And she was right, poor thing! But I was headstrong and obstinate, and would not hear her. Oh, my darling, how we have paid for it!"
"But you have found me again, dear love!" He did not answer, but raised up her face from his shoulder, parting the loose hair tenderly—for it was all free on her shoulders—and gazing straight into her eyes with an expression of utter bewilderment. "Yes, darling, what is it?" said she, as though he had spoken.
"I am getting fogged!" he said, "and cannot make it out. Was it pure accident? Surely something must have happened to bring it about."
"Bring what about?"
"How came we to find each other again, I mean?"
"Oh, I see! Pure accident, I should say, dear! Why not? It would not have happened if it had not been possible. Thank God it did!"
"Thank God it did! But think of the strangeness of it all! How came Sally in that train?"
"Why not, darling? Where else could she have been? She was coming back to tea, as usual."
"And she put me in a cab—bless her!—she and Conrad Vereker—and brought me home to you. But did you know me at once, darling?"
"At once."