Dick took the offered seat, but remained silent.
“How, then, Mr. Hammond, tell me! tell me quickly what does Alick say? And, oh, forgive my impatience! but it has been so long since I have heard from my husband, and I have been so uneasy about him!” she said, and her hurried tones, her eager face and trembling frame, all betrayed the excess of anxiety that agitated her.
But Dick Hammond sat silent and immovable, cursing the fate that had thrust upon him a duty he found so hard to perform.
“Why don’t you answer me? Why are you silent? Why do you look so strangely, avoiding my eyes? What is the matter? Oh, Heaven, what has happened?” she cried, turning pale and beginning to twist her fingers.
“Mrs. Lyon,” said Dick, with an effort, “I have neither letter nor message from Alexander.”
“Neither letter nor message from my husband? I thought you came from him! I thought you came with his sanction. Else why are you here at all?” she asked, shivering with a vague alarm.
“Madam!” cried Dick, jumping up, flushing red, and, between his pity for her and his rage at Alick, losing all his self-command; “Madam, I came here to tell you that Alexander Lyon is a reproach to his name and to manhood! and totally unworthy of your regard, or of the notice of any honest woman!”
Drusilla was struck dumb.
For a few moments she gazed at him in blank wonder, while he strode up and down the garden walk before her, wiping his brows and trying to subdue his excitement. Then she arose slowly, stretched out her arm, and pointing to the outer gate said, quietly:
“Leave this place, sir.”