"Can't we sit down a moment. I--I can't talk standing up. I must sit
down."
They sat down, in an enclosed seat designed to hold four. And Edwin
could feel the wind on his calves, which stretched beyond the screened
side of the structure. Odd people passed dimly to and fro in front of
them, glanced at them with nonchalant curiosity, and glanced away. On
the previous evening he had observed couples in those shelters, and had
wondered what could be the circumstances or the preferences which led
them to accept such a situation. Certainly he could not have dreamed
that within twenty-four hours he would be sitting in one of them with
her, by her appointment, at her request. He thrilled with excitement--
with delicious anxieties.
"Janet told you I was a widow," Hilda began, gazing at the ferule of her
umbrella, which gleamed on the ground.
"Yes." Again she was surprising him.
"Well, we arranged she should tell every one that. But I think you
ought to know that I'm not."
"No?" he murmured weakly. And in one small unimportant region of his
mind he reflected with astonishment upon the hesitating but convincing
air with which Janet had lied to him. Janet!
"After what you've done"--she paused, and went on with unblurred
clearness--"after what you've insisted on doing, I don't want there to
be any misunderstanding. I'm not a widow. My husband's in prison.
He'll be in prison for another six or seven years. That's all I wanted
to tell you."
"I'm very sorry," he breathed. "I'd no idea you'd had this trouble."
What could he say? What could anybody have said?
"I ought to have told you at once," she said. "I ought to have told you
last night." Another pause. "Then perhaps you wouldn't have come again
this morning."
"Yes, I should!" he asserted eagerly. "If you're in a hole, you're in a
hole. What difference could it possibly make whether you were a widow
or not?"
"Oh!" she said. "The wife of a convict... you know!" He felt that she
was evading the point.
She went on: "It's a good thing my three old ladies don't know,
anyhow...! I'd no chance to tell you this morning. You were too much
for me."
"I don't care whose wife you are!" he muttered, as though to himself, as
though resenting something said by some one who had gone away and left
him. "If you're in a hole, you're in a hole."
She turned and looked at him. His eyes fell before hers.
"Well," she said. "I've told you. I must go. I haven't a moment.
Good night." She held out her hand. "You don't want me to thank you a
lot, do you?"
"That I don't!" he exclaimed.
"Good night."
"But--"
"I really must go."
He rose and gave his hand. The next instant she was gone.
There was a deafening roar in his head. It was the complete destruction
by earthquake of a city of dreams. A calamity which left nothing--even
to be desired! A tremendous silence reigned after the event.
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