"That lets me out," he said.

"My poor Frank, you never were in," she said, regarding him with
great kindness and compassion. "I know you are disappointed, but
you are too much a man to be unjust to me."

"Oh, I haven't the right to say a word!" he exclaimed quickly. "On
your side it was friends and nothing more. I always understood
that, Florence."

He was shocked at her almost imperceptible sigh of relief.

"Of course, this changes everything," she said.

"Yet it would have come if it hadn't been for this," he said. "You
were getting to like me better and better. You cried when I last
went away. Yes, it would have come, Florence," he repeated,
looking at her wistfully.

"I suppose it would, Frank," she said.

"Oh, Florence!" he exclaimed, and could not go on lest his voice
should betray him.

"And we should have lived in a poky little house," she said, "and
you would have been to sea three-quarters of the time, leaving me
to eat my heart out as mother did for father--and it would have
been a horrible, dreadful, irrevocable mistake."