"Dead! Who is dead? What do you mean?"
"He is dead," he repeated, but still he kept his eyes lowered.
"He! What he? What are you talking about?" She had left her seat and fronted him.
"Royal Weldon," he made answer, and as he did so he looked up at her.
Her hands fluttered like falling leaves. An increased color mounted to her cheeks, and disappearing, left them white. Her lips trembled.
"I do not understand," she gasped. And then, as her dilated eyes stared into his own, he saw that she understood at last. Her fluttering hands had gone to her throat, as though to tear away some invisible clutch. Her lips had grown gray. She was livid.
"It is better so, is it not?" he asked, and searched her face for some trace of the symptoms of joy. As he gazed at her, she retreated. Her hands had left her throat, her forehead was pinioned in their grasp, and in her eyes the expression of terrified wonder was seamed and obscured by another that resembled hate.
"And it was you," she stammered, "it was you?"
"Yes," he answered, with an air of wonder that equalled her own; "yes——"
"You tell me that Royal Weldon is dead, and that you—that you——"