She could not find the double meaning that must have been behind his words.

"I went there, however," she said, "because I was sorry for him, John.

If you had seen you'd have been sorry, too, or else you would have laughed; I could hardly keep from it at first." "I suppose he took you in his arms at once ?" "I think he wanted to.

Then, of course, I told him at once why I had come." "Which was ?" "Simply that it was absurd for him to stay about and persecute me; that the letters I wrote him were simply written for fun, when I was doing some of my cousin's work at the correspondence schools; that the best thing he could do would be to take my regrets and go back to the West." "Did you tell him all that ?" asked John Mark in a rather changed voice.
"Yes; but not quite so bluntly." "Naturally not; you're a gentle girl, Caroline.

I suppose he took it very hard." "Very, but in a silly way.