A certain drawn expression seemed suddenly to vanish from the young man’s face. He followed the servant almost blithely. In a few seconds he was alone with her in the firelit drawing-room. The door was closed behind him.
Pauline was sitting up on the couch. For a moment they neither of them spoke. She, too, had been suffering, then, he thought, recognising the signs of ill-health in her colorless cheeks and languid pose.
He came slowly across the room and held out his hand. She hesitated, and shook her head.
“No!” she said. “I do not think that I wish to shake hands with you, Mr. Saton. I do not understand why you have come here. I thought it best to see you, and hear what you have to say, once and for all.”
“Once and for all?” he repeated.
“Certainly,” she answered. “It does not interest me to fence with words. Between us I think that it is not necessary. What do you want with me?”
“You know,” he answered calmly.
She paused for a moment or two. She told herself that this was the most transcendental of follies. Yet it seemed as though there were something electrical in the atmosphere, as though something had come into the room unaccountable, stimulating, terrifying. All the languor of the last few days was gone.
“Am I to understand, then?” she said at last, speaking in a low tone, and with her face averted from him, “that you have come to offer me some explanation of the events of that night?”
“No!” he answered.