“I see,” said Cornish.  “I never thought of that,” he added.  She caught his speculative look—­he had heard a tale or two concerning her return, as who in Warbleton had not heard?

“You’re wondering why I didn’t stay with him!” Lulu said recklessly.  This was no less than wrung from her, but its utterance occasioned in her an unspeakable relief.

“Oh, no,” Cornish disclaimed, and coloured and rocked.

“Yes, you are,” she swept on.  “The whole town’s wondering.  Well, I’d like ’em to know, but Dwight won’t let me tell.”

Cornish frowned, trying to understand.

“‘Won’t let you!’” he repeated.  “I should say that was your own affair.”

“No.  Not when Dwight gives me all I have.”

“Oh, that—­” said Cornish.  “That’s not right.”

“No.  But there it is.  It puts me—­you see what it does to me.  They think—­they all think my—­husband left me.”

It was curious to hear her bring out that word—­tentatively, deprecatingly, like some one daring a foreign phrase without warrant.

Cornish said feebly:  “Oh, well....”

Before she willed it, she was telling him: 

“He didn’t.  He didn’t leave me,” she cried with passion.  “He had another wife.”  Incredibly it was as if she were defending both him and herself.

“Lord sakes!” said Cornish.

She poured it out, in her passion to tell some one, to share her news of her state where there would be neither hardness nor censure.

“We were in Savannah, Georgia,” she said.  “We were going to leave for Oregon—­going to go through California.  We were in the hotel, and he was going out to get the tickets.  He started to go.  Then he came back.  I was sitting the same as there.  He opened the door again—­the same as here.  I saw he looked different—­and he said quick:  ’There’s something you’d ought to know before we go.’  And of course I said, ‘What?’ And he said it right out—­how he was married eighteen years ago and in two years she ran away and she must be dead but he wasn’t sure.  He hadn’t the proofs.  So of course I came home.  But it wasn’t him left me.”

“No, no.  Of course he didn’t,” Cornish said earnestly.  “But Lord sakes—­” he said again.  He rose to walk about, found it impracticable and sat down.

“That’s what Dwight don’t want me to tell—­he thinks it isn’t true.  He thinks—­he didn’t have any other wife.  He thinks he wanted—­” Lulu looked up at him.

“You see,” she said, “Dwight thinks he didn’t want me.”

“But why don’t you make your—­husband—­I mean, why doesn’t he write to Mr. Deacon here, and tell him the truth—­” Cornish burst out.

Under this implied belief, she relaxed and into her face came its rare sweetness.

“He has written,” she said.  “The letter’s there.”

He followed her look, scowled at the two letters.

“What’d he say?”

“Dwight don’t like me to touch his mail.  I’ll have to wait till he comes back.”