"Lydia," he said, "don't keep me waiting. Tell me at once."
She tried to speak, and he heard her voice strangle like a live thing in her throat.
"Is Alice dead?" he asked quietly, "or is Dick?"
At this she appeared to regain control of herself and he watched the mask of her impenetrable reserve close over her features. "It is not that—nobody is dead—it is worse," she answered in a subdued and lifeless voice.
"Worse?" The word stunned him, and he stared at her blankly, like a person whose mind has suddenly given way.
"Alice is in my room," she went on, when he had paused, "I left her with Uncle Richard while I came here to look for you. We did not hear you come in. I thought you were still out."
Her manner, even more than her words, impressed him only as an evasion of the thing in her mind, and seizing her hands almost roughly, he drew her forward until he could look closely into her face.
"For God's sake—speak!" he commanded.
But with his grasp all animation appeared to go out of her, and she fell across his knees in an immovable weight, while her eyes still gazed up at him.
"If you can't tell me I must go to Uncle Richard," he added.