Her eyes were luminous, and were riveted on his face. All color had faded out of her cheek, and in the dim light her skin looked greenish-yellow and dead. She did not speak for several minutes.
So it was all to end like this! That was the thought which pirouetted insanely up and down the foreground of her consciousness.
"You—you don't mean," she cried huskily, "you can't mean that you believe I—I stole this book?"
"You have refused to let me believe anything else," he answered, without a trace of feeling in his voice.
"But you would not—you dare not make any such—any such absurd belief public!" she cried, leaning closer toward him. The room grew unendurably hot and close, and the walls seemed reeling and swaying about her.
"You would not!" she cried again, in a higher key, putting her hand up to her head.
Their eyes met. She saw but one thing, and that thing was that there dwelt no touch of kindness or commiseration on his face.
"I have my duty to the dead to perform!"
"But they're lies, all lies!" she cried shrilly.
"That, you will have every chance to show when the time comes!"