“It's better to be frank at once, Hester,” said he, boldly, “and say that I feel you are grown very cold and distant toward me. This is not your old manner, this not exactly the reception I looked for. Now, if you have any cause for this, would it not be better and fairer to speak it out openly than continue to treat me in this slighting fashion? You are silent, so there is something; pray let's hear it.”
“What of Newmarket?” said she, in a low voice, so faint as almost to be a whisper.
“So that's it,” said he, as he folded his arms and looked steadfastly at her.
There was something in the cold and steady gaze he bestowed upon her that abashed, if not actually alarmed, Lady Hester. She had seen the same look once or twice before, and always as the prelude to some terrible evidence of his temper.
“Lady Hester,” said he, in a low, distinct, and very slow voice, as though he would not have her lose a word he spoke, “the explanation which a man would ask for at the peril of his life ought not, in common justice, to be quite costless to a lady. It is perfectly possible that you may not care for the price, be it so; only I warn you that if you wish for any information on the subject you allude to, I will inquire whether—”
Here he dropped his voice, and whispered two or three words rapidly in her ear, after which she lay back, pale, sick, and almost fainting, without strength to speak or even to move.
“Do not say, or still less feel, that this contest is of my provoking. Never was any man less in the humor to provoke hostilities, and particularly from old friends. I have just had bad luck, the very worst of bad luck. I have lost everything but my head; and even that, cool and calculating as it is, may go too if I be pushed too far. Now you have a frank and free confession from me. I have told you more than I would to any other living, more, perhaps, than I ought even to you.”
“Then what do you intend to do here?” asked she, faintly.
“Wait wait patiently for awhile. Fix upon anyone that I can discover mutters a syllable to my discredit, and shoot him as I would a dog.”
“There may be some who, without openly discussing, will shun your society, and avoid your intercourse.”