"Well, Fabian," she answered.
She was as white and hard as marble; her lips when she ceased to speak were closed tightly, her blue eyes blazed from her hard, white face.
"What brings you here?" he inquired.
"What brings me here, indeed! To see you. Only this morning I heard of your intended business. Only this morning, after the morning train had left. If there had been another train within an hour or two, I should have taken it and gone to the city and should have been in time to stop the wicked wedding."
"What a blessing that there was not! You could not have stopped the marriage. You would only have exposed yourself and made a row."
"Then I should have done that."
"I don't think so. It would not have been like you. You are too cool, too politic to ruin yourself. Come, Rose," looking at his watch, "there are but just sixteen minutes before the train starts. I have just fifteen to give you, because it will take me one minute to reach my seat. Therefore, whatever you have to say, my dear, had better be said at once."
"I have not come here to reproach you, Fabian Rockharrt," she said, fixing him with her eyes.
"That is kind of you at all events."
"No; we reproach a man for carelessness, for thoughtlessness, for forgetfulness; but for baseness, villainy, treachery like yours it is not reproach, it is—"