He sat down on the arm of her chair and patted her cheek. To his utter amazement Dolly broke into a storm of tears. Long ago he had seen Dolly cry when she had hurt herself, because he had teased her, because she was angry or disappointed. He had never seen any woman cry as she did now. It was not just simple grieved weeping. It was a tempest that shook her. Her body quivered, her breath came in gasping bursts between racking sobs.
MacRae gathered her into his arms, trying to dam that wild flood. She put her face against him and clung there, trembling like some hunted thing seeking refuge, mysteriously stirring MacRae with the passionate abandon of her tears, filling him with vague apprehensions, with a strange excitement.
Like the tornado, swift in its striking and passing, so this storm passed. Dolly's sobbing ceased. She rested passively in his arms for a minute. Then she sighed, brushed the cloudy hair out of her eyes, and looked up at him.
"I wonder why I should go all to pieces like that so suddenly?" she muttered. "And why I should somehow feel better for it?"
"I don't know," MacRae said. "Maybe I could tell you if I knew why you went off like that. You poor little devil. Something has stung you deep, I know."
"Yes," she admitted. "I hope nothing like it ever comes to you, Jack. I'm bleeding internally. Oh, it hurts, it hurts!"
She laid her head against him and cried again softly.
"Tell me," he whispered.
"Why not?" She lifted her head after a little. "You could always keep things to yourself. It wasn't much wonder they called you Silent John. Do you know I never really grasped The Ancient Mariner until now? People must tell their troubles to some one—or they'd corrode inside."