"Very well, if you take that tone, let me tell you that I too have had a letter—Primus has just brought it from East Angels—it was sent there."
She glanced at him over her shoulder with eyes that looked full of fear—a fear which he did not stop to analyze.
"It is possible that Lanse has written to me even more plainly than he has to you," he went on. "At any rate, he tells me that he is going to Italy—it is the old affair revived—and that he has no present intention of returning. What he has said in his letter to you, of course I don't know; but it can hardly be the whole, because he asks me to 'break' it to you. 'Break' it,—he has chosen his messenger well!"
"O my God," said Margaret Harold.
Her words were a prayer. She sank down on her knees beside the sofa, and buried her face in her clasped arms.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Evert Winthrop had felt that her words were a prayer, that she was praying still.
Against what especial danger she was thus invoking aid, he did not know; before he could speak, old Rose had opened the door, and Margaret, springing up, was going forward to meet the Rev. Mr. Moore, who with his usual equable expression entered, hat in hand, to pay Mrs. Harold a short visit; he had been obliged to come over to the river that morning on business, and had thought that he would take the occasion for a little social pleasure as well.
Margaret put out her hands eagerly; "It's wonderful—your coming now! You will stay with me, won't you?—I am in great trouble."