No answer—not a breath—only an incredulous stare. Once more Agatha's passion rose, a sea of wrath, misery, despair, that dashed her blindly on, she recked not where.
“I see it all now—all your wickedness. You never loved me, you only loved my riches. You have them now, and so you can stand there and gaze at me, as hard, as dumb as a stone. But I will make you hear—I will shriek it into your silence again—again—You married me for my money!”
Still no word. The silence she spoke of was awful. Nathanael stood upright, his hands knotted together, the lids dropping over his eyes. He neither looked at her nor at anything. There was not the slightest expression in his face—it might have been carved in granite. When at last almost to see if he were living man, Agatha clutched his arm, it also felt hard, immoveable, like a granite rock.
“Mr. Harper!” she cried, terror mingling with the outburst of her rage.
He merely lifted his eyes and looked at the door.—Not once—oh! never once at her!
“Ay, I will go,” she answered—“most gladly, most thankfully! I will run anywhere to escape your presence.”
She crossed the room and tried to unfasten the door, which she had herself bolted a little while before, out of play; but her trembling fingers were useless. She was obliged to call her husband's help, and he came.
Perfectly silent, without a single glance towards her, he undid the fastening, and set the door open for her to pass. A pang of fear, nay remorse, came over Agatha.
“Speak,” she cried—“if only one word, speak!”
His lips moved, as though framing an inarticulate “No,” and then closed again in that iron line. He still stood holding the door.