"Tell me--tell me," she repeated, faintly, and with a quick involuntary closing of her eyes, which would have told a close observer of constant suffering and apprehension.
"Sit down, Harry." He rose as he spoke, placed her in his chair, and stood before her, holding both her hands in his.
"I have found out that the man we knew as Philip Deane was--was Arthur Felton, George Dallas's cousin, the man they are inquiring about, whom they are expecting here."
She did not utter a cry, a groan, or any sort of sound. She shrank into the chair she was sitting in, as if she cowered for life in a hiding-place, her outstretched hands turned cold and clammy in her husband's grasp. Into her widely opened blue eyes a look of unspeakable horror came, and the paleness of her cheeks turned to ashen gray. Stewart Routh, still standing before her holding her hands, looked at her as the ghastly change came over her face, telling--what words could never tell--of the anguish she was suffering, and thought for a moment that she was dying before his face. The breath came from her lips in heavy gasps, and her low white brow was damp with cold sluggish drops.
"Harriet," said Routh--"Harriet, don't give way like this. It's awful--it's worse than anything I ever thought of, or feared. But don't give way like this."
"I am not giving way," she said. Drawing her hands from his hold, she raised them to her head, and held them pressed to her temples while she spoke. "I will not give way. Trust me, as you have done before. This, then, is what I have felt coming nearer and nearer, like a danger in the dark--this--this dreadful truth. It is better known than vague. Tell me how you have discovered it."
He began to walk up and down the room, and she still sat cowering in her chair, her hands pressing her temples, her eyes, with their horror-stricken looks, following him.
"I discovered it by an extraordinary accident. I have not seen much of Dallas, as you know, and I know nothing in particular about Mr. Felton and his son. But there is a lady here--an American widow--who knows Felton well."
"Yes," said Harriet, with distinctness; and now she sat upright in her chair, and her low white brow was knitted over her horror-stricken eyes. "Yes, I have seen her."
"Have you indeed? Ah! well, then, you know who I mean. She and he were great friends--lovers, I fancy," Routh went on, with painful effort; "and when they parted in Paris, it was with an understanding that they were to meet here just about this time. She met George Dallas, and told him, not that, but something which made him understand that information was to be had from her, and she has appointed an interview with Mr. Felton for to-morrow."