"IT IS THE TRUTH."
Leslie looked at Ralph Duncombe vacantly for a moment, as if she had failed to understand him; then the color began to ebb from her face and left it white, and she strove feebly to release herself from Yorke's enfolding arms.
He did not speak, but he glared at Ralph Duncombe in a kind of half-dazed fury.
Lucy was the first to break the awful silence which followed Ralph's announcement.
"Oh, no, no, it is not—it cannot be true! There must be some mistake, Ralph," she exclaimed, almost inaudibly.
Ralph Duncombe bit his lip. He had spoken in the first heat of his amazement and indignation, and was, perhaps, sorry that he had done so, or, at any rate, that he had spoken so precipitately.
"It is true," he said doggedly. "Ask him! It is for him to explain."
All eyes were fixed on Yorke. The two women's with an anxious, expectant look in them, as if they were only waiting for his contradiction and denial.
But his face grew as white as Leslie's, and after looking round wildly he hung his head and groaned.