She looked him over critically.
“Perhaps I am not so absolutely courageous as you think,” she remarked. “To tell you the truth, there are a good many things of which I am afraid when you come to me in such a state. I am afraid of you, of what you will do or say.”
“You need not be,” he assured her hastily. “When I am away from you, I am dumb. What I suffer no one knows. I keep it to myself.”
She nodded, a little contemptuously.
“I suppose you do your best,” she declared. “Tell me, now, what is this fresh thing which has disturbed you?”
Her visitor stared at her.
“Does there need to be any fresh thing?” he muttered.
“I suppose it is something about Wenham?” she asked.
The man shivered. He opened his lips and closed them again. The woman's tone, if possible, grew colder.
“I hope you are not going to tell me that you have disobeyed my orders,” she said.