Her lips suddenly parted, and he heard her quick breath; but the look that followed was of mere astonishment, and in a moment, before she spoke, it softened in a smile.
'This is your dreadful news? You quarrelled—and he is going to withdraw from the business. Oh, my dear boy, how ridiculous you are! I thought all sorts of horrible things. Were you afraid I should make an outcry? And you have worried yourself into illness about this? Oh, foolish fellow!'
Before she ceased, her voice was broken with laughter—a laugh of extravagant gaiety, of mocking mirth, that brought the blood to her face and shook her from head to foot. Only when she saw that her husband's gloom underwent no change did this merriment cease. Then, with abrupt gravity, which was almost annoyance, her eyes shining with moisture and her cheeks flushed, she asked him——
'Isn't that it?'
'Worse than that,' Hugh answered.
But he spoke more freely, for he no longer felt obliged to watch her countenance. His duty now was to soften the outrage involved in repeating Mrs. Maskell's fiction by making plain his absolute faith in her, and to contrive his story so as to omit all mention of a third person's presence at the fatal interview.
'Then do tell me and have done!' exclaimed Sibyl, almost petulantly.
'We quarrelled—and I struck him—and the blow was fatal.'
'Fatal?—you mean he was killed?'
The blood vanished from her face, leaving pale horror.