She turned about, and, with her back to the hearth, surveyed the room suspiciously. Her gaze fell upon the waste-paper basket, heaped high and brimming over with torn documents. This puzzled her again, and her brow contracted in a frown. But just then she caught the sound of the Commandant's footsteps returning along the flagged passage, and bent anew over the fire.
The Commandant appeared in the doorway with a plate of ship's biscuit in his hand, and on his face a flush of extreme embarrassment.
"Do you know, I really am ashamed of myself," he began with a stammer, holding out the plate. "But Archelaus has gone to bed, and—and this is all I can find."
"Capital!" she answered gaily. "Let us break into the back premises and forage. After my burglarious entry that will just suit my mood."
"I'm afraid—" he began, and hesitated. "I am very much afraid—" There was unmistakable trouble in his voice, and again he came to a halt.
Vashti straightened herself up. Her eyes were on him as he set the plate down on the table, but he avoided them, attempting a small forced laugh. The laugh was a dead failure. Silence followed it, and in the silence he felt horribly aware that she was grasping the truth—the humiliating truth; that moment by moment the scales were falling from her eyes that still persistently sought his.
The silence was broken by the noise of a poker falling against the fender. He started, met her gaze for a moment, and again averted his.
"You don't mean to say——"
Her voice trailed off, in pitiful surmise. Silence again; and in the silence he heard her sink back into the arm chair—and knew no more until, at the sound of one strangling sob, terrible to hear, he found himself standing at the arm of her chair and bending over her.
"My dear!" He used the familiar Island speech. "My dear, you must not—please!"