Such were his thoughts as he directed a stony stare of freezing haughtiness upon her—the woman, his sister, whom he now regarded as beyond the pale of blood relationship.
“I did not expect to meet you here,” he said in a voice grave with a sense of the worry from which he was suffering and from which wrong he could not, no matter how he reasoned, disassociate the name of his sister.
“I have tried to find you—to meet you—to—in short, to demand an explanation of this affair; but until now I have been unsuccessful.”
She spoke hesitatingly and with a slight tremor in her voice, otherwise there was no indication of the great emotion that she was laboring under. In short, her demeanor, while firm and of simple dignity, was of the gravest character imaginable.
“You have broken all ties between us,” he answered slowly.
“John, John! Don’t turn away! Stop!” and she held up a warning finger as, stepping in front of him, she barred his way.
“You shall hear me. For I believe what I have to tell you is of the utmost importance. But first, what cause have you for divorcing Constance?”
“You ask that question?” he slowly emphasized.
“Yes, I ask that question,” as steadily and definitely she regarded him.
“If on my return from China you had not concealed from me her infatuation for that man—that fellow Corway—this unhappy trouble would have been over long ago.”