She hesitated, coloured, betrayed confusion; her senses telling her of a catastrophe, her conscience accusing her as the origin of it.
'Did Dr. Shrapnel, to your belief, intentionally hurt your feelings or your dignity?' said Beauchamp, and made the answer easier:
'Not intentionally, surely: not . . . I certainly do not accuse him.'
'Can you tell me you feel that he wounded you in the smallest degree? And if so, how? I ask you this, because he is anxious, if he lives, to apologize to you for any offence that he may have been guilty of: he was ignorant of it. I have his word for that, and his commands to me to bear it to you. I may tell you I have never known him injure the most feeble thing—anything alive, or wish to.'
Beauchamp's voice choked. Rosamund saw tears leap out of the stern face of her dearest now in wrath with her.
'Is he ill?' she faltered.
'He is. You own to a strong dislike of him, do you not?'
'But not to desire any harm to him.'
'Not a whipping,' Mr. Culbrett murmured.
Everard Romfrey overheard it.