He stood looking at her for a few seconds.
Neither of them spoke.
Then he advanced with both hands outstretched.
“Agnes! Agnes!” he cried, “I have come to talk with you about him—Dick—poor Dick! You saw him on the day that ruffian killed him. You can tell me more than the others about him.”
He had both his hands held out to her—not outstretched in any attitude of passionate eagerness, but with encouraging friendliness; that was exactly what his attitude suggested to her—encouraging friendliness.
She put both her hands into his without a word—without even rising. He held them for a moment while he looked into her face. There was an expression of restlessness on his face. She saw that his forehead was furrowed with many lines. His eyes were sunken, and there was a curious fierceness in their depths.
Then he dropped her hands, and walked to the window, standing with his back to it and his head slightly bowed.
“It was a terrible shock to me to hear what happened; and to think that the same paper that contained an account of my safety told of his death! To think that within a couple of months we might have been together! My God! When I think that but for an idiotic man falling ill when we were within a month's journey of the lake—a man whose life was worth nothing—I might have been here—at his side—to stand between him and danger!”
He began pacing the room, his hands clenched fiercely and the fire of his eyes becoming more intense.
She sat there without a word, watching him. Her eyes followed him up and down the room.