His features were wan. There were lines under his dark eyes. He was looking thin and nervous. His voice, too, had lost some of its pleasant qualities.
“My dear young lady,” he said, “my dear Lois, what do you mean? You don’t suppose—you can’t—that it was through me in any way that—that thing happened?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” she faltered, with white lips. “It was all so horrible. You pointed to him, and your eyes when you looked at him seemed to shine as though they were on fire. I saw him shrink away, and the color leave his cheeks. It was horrible!”
“But, Lois,” he protested, “you cannot imagine that by looking at a man I could help to kill him? I can’t explain what happened. As yet there are things in the world which no one can explain. This is one of them. I know a little more than most people. It is partly temperament, perhaps—partly study, but it is surely true that I can sometimes feel things coming. From the first moment I looked into Guerdon’s face at dinner-time, I knew what was going to happen. Out there in the hall I felt it. Once before in South America, I saw a man shoot himself. I tell you that I was certain of what he was going to do before I knew that he had even a revolver in his pocket. It comes to me, the knowledge of these things. I cannot be blamed for it. Some day I shall write the first text-book that has ever been written of a new science. I shall evolve the first few rudimentary laws, and after that the thing will go easily. Every generation will add to them. But, Lois, because I am the first, because I have seen a little further into the world than others, you are not going to look at me as though I were a murderer!”
She drew a little breath, a breath of relief. Her hand fell upon his arm.
“No!” she said. “I have been foolish. It is absurd to imagine that you could have brought that about by just wishing for it.”
“Why, even, should I have wished for it?” he asked. “Lord Guerdon was a stranger to me. As an acquaintance I found him pleasant enough. I had no grudge against him.”
She drew him a little way on down the lane.
“I must only stay for a few minutes,” she said. “If we walk down here we shall meet nobody. Do you know what Mr. Rochester has suggested?”
“No!” Saton answered. “What?”