At the sound of his voice I trembled, yet I answered him at once:
“Not yet. To-morrow night I shall see him. Till then I could do nothing—and I came here.” He looked at my mud-bespattered boots and wind-tossed hair.
“You have walked from Mellborough?” he asked. Then something in my face seemed to strike him, and, leaning forward, he placed his hands upon my shoulders and turned towards the glow of the fire.
“You have come with a purpose!” he said slowly. “Tell me—you have heard something in London?”
I bowed my head silently.
“Some story of the past—my past?”
“Yes.”
“My God!”
Then there was silence between us. I bore it till I could bear it no longer.
“Can you wonder that I have come?” I cried, my voice shaking with a passion which I knew no longer how to restrain. “Oh, speak to me! Tell me whether this thing is true?”