“Don't touch me!”
Arthur seized her right hand with sudden violence.
“Listen, for God's sake! It was not my fault; I——”
“Let go; let my hand go! Let go!”
The next instant she wrenched her fingers away from his, and struck him across the cheek with her open hand.
A kind of mist came over his eyes. For a little while he was conscious of nothing but Gemma's white and desperate face, and the right hand which she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her cotton dress. Then the daylight crept back again, and he looked round and saw that he was alone.
CHAPTER VII.
IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the front door of the great house in the Via Borra. He remembered that he had been wandering about the streets; but where, or why, or for how long, he had no idea. Julia's page opened the door, yawning, and grinned significantly at the haggard, stony face. It seemed to him a prodigious joke to have the young master come home from jail like a “drunk and disorderly” beggar. Arthur went upstairs. On the first floor he met Gibbons coming down with an air of lofty and solemn disapproval. He tried to pass with a muttered “Good evening”; but Gibbons was no easy person to get past against his will.
“The gentlemen are out, sir,” he said, looking critically at Arthur's rather neglected dress and hair. “They have gone with the mistress to an evening party, and will not be back till nearly twelve.”