“If you can’t guess, it is useless for me to tell you,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
He took out a cigarette. She noted a trembling of the fingers.
“Do you mind?” She nodded, he lit the cigarette. “I thought here, at any rate, I was hidden from you for the rest of my life. It wouldn’t have been very long anyway. I had made up my mind some day soon to set you free of me—and to-day or to-morrow—what did it matter? I don’t ask you to believe that either. I don’t see how you can believe a word I say. I gave you to understand, that I was in Poland—you find me here. When did Myra tell you I was here?”
Returning sanity had corrected his first mad impression. How could she be a mile from Pendish if she had not heard from Myra? But she regarded him open-mouthed.
“Myra? What has Myra to do with it? Of course I had no conception you were here? I knew you were not in Poland. A man—a Pole—I forget his name—wrote to Major Olifant, last year, wondering what had become of you. You had never joined him——”
“Boronowski,” said Triona.
“That was the name——”
“And you took it for granted I had lied to him too.” Her eyes dropped beneath his half sad, half ironic gaze. She made a little despairing gesture.
“What would you have?”
“And Myra never told you anything about me?”