I murmured some banal apologia, miserably aware that one set of words is as futile as another when one has broken a woman's heart.
"You never knew I loved you ?" she went on in the same bitter undertone.
"What kind of woman did you take me for?
I have accepted help from you to enable me to live in this flat--do you imagine I could have done such a thing without loving you?
I should have thought it was obvious in a thousand ways." The fire getting low, she took up the scoop for coals.

Mechanically I relieved her of the thing and fulfilled the familiar task.

Neither spoke for a long time.

She remained there and I went to the window.

It had begun to rain.