“I am,” she cried at last, as if mastering herself after some terrible spasm. “Robert, I have been told something to-day that makes me tremble.”
“Some news?” he said coolly.
“Yes, news—terrible news.”
“Let’s have it—if you like,” he said. “I don’t care. It don’t matter, unless it will do you good to tell it.”
Her face was wrung by the agony of her soul as she heard his callous words. The veil was being terribly rent now; and as her eyes saw more clearly, she tried in vain to close her mental sight; but no, she seemed forced to gaze now, and the idol that was tottering began to show that it was indeed of clay.
“Well, don’t look like that,” he said. “A man who has been transported is pretty well case-hardened. There is no worse trouble in life.”
“No worse?” she panted out in a quick, angry way, as words had never before left her lips; “not if he lost the love and trust of wife and child?”
“Well, that would be unpleasant,” he said coolly. “Perhaps the poor wretch would be able to get over it in time. What is your news?”
“I have heard you freshly accused to-day of that old crime, of which you were innocent.”
“Of which I was innocent, of course,” he said coolly. “Is that all?”