"I wish to know the minister's business."
"I must tell Robert first."
"I must tell Robert first," cried Mrs. Campbell with mocking mimicry. "Let me tell you, Robert would rather you never spoke to him! He wishes you far away—he is sick of you, as I am—he is sorry he ever saw your face."
"I do not believe these things. Will you leave me? You are very cruel—I have not deserved such abuse." Once more she dropped her eyes on her book, but the letters were blurred and the solid earth seemed reeling.
"Give me that book and listen to what I say!"
There was no answer.
"Do you hear me? Give me that book."
Theodora neither spoke nor moved, and in a tragic frenzy of passion Mrs. Campbell seized the book and flung it to the other end of the room.
With a shriek, shrill yet weak, Theodora tottered to where it lay with its pages crumpled against the floor, and in the effort to lift the volume she fell like one dead beside it.
Then Ducie screamed for McNab and Jepson, and the two came hurrying in.