"There are reasons why I can't consider it for the present," he said. "What to say to him I don't quite know. By and by, perhaps. Joan is very young yet.... I don't know what to say; we must think it over."
"Edward," she said, after a pause, "if there is trouble hanging over us, let me know of it. Let me be prepared."
This reply, so different from any that he could have expected, kept him silent for a time. Then he took her hand in his and said, "I don't know why you say that; I had meant to keep it to myself till the trouble came; but I suppose you can always see through me. Nina, there is dreadful trouble coming to us. I hardly know how to tell you about it—how to begin. There is such trouble as I sometimes think nobody ever had to bear before. Oh, my God! how shall I break it to you!"
It was a cry of agony, the first cry he had uttered. It rang through the room. Joan caught the echo of it, and lifted her head from the pillow, but dropped it again and closed her eyes on her happy thoughts.
"Oh, Edward!" Mrs. Clinton cried, clinging to him, "I can't bear to see you suffer like this. My dear husband, there is no need to break anything to me. I know."
"What!" His voice was low and alarmed. "She has already——"
"Poor Susan told me," she said. "She told me on her death-bed."
He sighed momentary relief. "You have known for all these weeks!" he said. "Oh, why didn't you speak?"
"What could I have said? How could I have helped matters? What was there to do?" Her usually calm, slow speech was agitated, and told him more of what she had gone through than words could have done. "I saw you anxious and troubled, and I longed for you to confide in me; but until you did——"
"I couldn't," he said. "I gave Humphrey my promise. He had his reasons, but whether he ought to have——"