Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/110

98 you,' and I thought if I sent for you you'd understand."

"You seem to have thought your sending for me a more enlightening move than I found it."

"Yes—because you don't care now. If you had, you'd have understood."

"I really think I should like to understand."

"What?"

"Exactly what it is you're kind enough to forgive."

"Why—your never coming to see me. Benoliel told me before we'd been married a month that he had got my aunt to stop your letters and mine, so I don't blame you now as I did then. But you might have come when you found I didn't write."

"I did come. The house was shut up, and the caretaker could give no address."

"Did you really? And there was no address? I never thought of that."

"I don't suppose you did," he said savagely; "you never did think!"

"Oh, I was a fool! I was!"

"Yes."

"But I have been punished."