His eyes flashed to mine, and a very vivid and real horror blanched his already pallid cheek till it looked blue in the dim light.
"What do you mean?" he gasped; and I saw the doctor had refrained from telling him of Ada's pitiful doom.
"I mean," said I, with a secret compunction I strove in vain to subdue, "that Mr. Barrows' betrothed could not survive his terrible fate—that she died a few hours since, and will be buried in the same grave as her lover."
"His betrothed?" Young Mr. Pollard had risen to his feet, and was actually staggering under the shock of his emotions. "I did not know he had any betrothed. I thought she had jilted him——"
"It is another woman," I broke in, jealous for my poor dead Ada's fame. "The woman he was formerly engaged to never loved him; but this one——" I could not finish the sentence. My own agitation was beginning to master me.
He looked at me, horrified, and I could have sworn the hair rose on his forehead.
"What was her name?" he asked. "Is it—is it any one I know?" Then, as if suddenly conscious that he was betraying too keen an emotion for the occasion, pitiful as it was, he forced his lips into a steadier curve, and quietly said: "After what has happened here, I am naturally overcome by a circumstance so coincident with our own trouble."
"Naturally," I assented with a bow, and again felt that secret distrust warring with a new feeling that was not unlike compassion.
"Her name is Ada Reynolds," I continued, remembering his last question.
"She lived——"
"I know," he interrupted; and without another word walked away, and for a long time stood silent at the other end of the room. Then he came back and sat down, and when I summoned up courage to glance at his face, I saw that a change had passed over it, that in all probability was a change for life.