But Meg made no effort to grasp the greeting hands. On the contrary, she moved so that the whole width of the dining-room table was between them. "Wait," she said, "you mustn't shake hands with me till I tell you what I've done ... perhaps you won't want to then." And Anthony saw that she was trembling. "Come and sit down," he said. "Something's wrong, I can see. What is it?" But she stood where she was, looking at him with large, tragic eyes; laid down a leather despatch-case she was carrying, and seized the edge of the table as if for support. "I'd rather not sit down yet," she said. "Perhaps when you've heard what I've got to tell you, you'll never want me to sit down in your house again ... and yet ... I did pray so you'd be here ... I knew it was most unlikely ... but I did pray so ... And you _are_ here." Anthony was puzzled. Meg was not given to making scenes or going into heroics. It was evident that something had happened to shake her out of her usual almost cynical calm. "You'd be much better to sit down," he said, soothingly. "You see, if you stand, so must I, and it's such an uncomfortable way of talking." She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, took off her gloves, and two absurd small thumbs appeared above its edge, the knuckles white and tense with the strength of her grip. Anthony seated himself in a deep chair beside the fireplace. He was in shadow. Meg faced the light, and he was shocked at the appearance of the little smitten face. "Now tell me," he said gently, "just as little or as much as you like." "This morning," she said hoarsely, "I ran away with a man ... in a motor-car." Anthony was certainly startled, but all he said was, "That being the case, why are you here, my dear, and what have you done with him?" "He was married...." "Have you only just found that out?" "No, I knew it all along. His wife is hard and disagreeable and older than he is ... and he's thirty-five ... and they can't live together, and she won't divorce him and he can't divorce her ... and I loved him so much and thought how beautiful it would be to give up everything and make it up to him." "Yes?" said Anthony, for Meg paused as though unable to go on. "And it seemed very wonderful and noble to do this, and I forgot my poor little Papa and those boys in India, and you and Jan and Fay and ... I was very mad and very happy ... till this morning, when we actually went off in his car." "But where," Anthony asked in a voice studiously even and quiet, "_are_ he and his car?" "I don't know," Meg said hopelessly, "unless they're still at the place where we had lunch ... and I don't suppose he'd stay there all this time...." Anthony felt a great desire to laugh, but Meg looked so woebegone and desperately serious that he restrained the impulse and said very kindly: "I don't yet understand how, having embarked upon such an enterprise, you happen to be here ... alone. Did you quarrel at lunch, or what?"