Griggs did not answer at once, and when he spoke his voice was unusually grave, and his eyes looked far away.
'A great misfortune happened to me,' he said.

'A great misfortune,' he repeated slowly, after a pause, and his tone and look told Margaret how great that calamity had been better than a score of big words.
'Forgive me,' Margaret said softly; 'I should have known.' 'No,' Griggs answered after a moment.

'You could not have known.

It happened very long ago, perhaps ten years before you were born.' Again he turned his sad grey eyes to hers, but no smile lingered now about the rather stern mouth.

The two looked at each other quietly for five or six seconds, and that may seem a long time.