He looked about him a moment, then approached her closely. His evil eyes, his acrid tongue took instant command of her.
“Di Rocco was murdered,” he said.
She uttered a weak cry; caught at a chair to steady herself; stood with closed eyes, and her head fallen back a little.
“Murdered,” he repeated—“only I, and one other, know by whom.”
“What other?”
She did not speak it; but the horror of the question took shape on her lips.
“Your husband,” he said.
She never stirred nor cried out. In the crash of that agony her first instinct was not to betray her love.
He let the thrust sink home, watching, with some diabolical curiosity, the settling of the flesh, as it were, about that cruel wound. Suddenly she moved, and came erect, hating him, his inhumanity.
“Base and wicked! you say it to torture me, because to torture is the lust of devils. I will not listen to you. I will not even understand what you imply. Go, before I have you scourged out of my house!”