She stood quite still for a moment, looking up at him.
"You have come to tell me something," she said, at length, in a low, almost monotonous voice. "And it is something about Richard. It is something—something wretched."
A slight flush mounted to his cheek,—a flush of shame.
"Yes," he answered, "it is something wretched."
She began to shake like a leaf, but it was not from fear.
"Then do not be afraid," she said; "there is no need! Richard—has not spared me!"
It was the first time through all she had borne and hidden, through all the years holding, for her, suffering and bitterness and disenchantment which had blighted all her youth,—it was the first time she had permitted her husband's name to escape her lips when she could not compel herself to utter it gently, and that, at last, he himself had forced such speech from her was the bitterest indignity of all.
And if she felt this, the professor felt it keenly, too. He had marked her silence and self-control at many a time when he had felt that the fire that burned in her must make her speak; but she had never spoken, and the dignity of her reserve had touched him often.
"What is it that Richard has done now, papa?" she said.