Without looking at it, however, she drew out her watch with a sharp tug at the silken guard that held it. "Yes, you have time," she announced, "if you hurry. I'll bring your things, Miss Reefe."
She disappeared.
"Tell me 'bout it, Deely," said Dennie, fumbling hopelessly with the letter, which he had now taken into his sunburned hands.
Adela set foot upon her agitation, and rapidly read the letter over to him.
Dennie appeared to be stunned. "Suicide?" he said. "What for? Hev you got any right for to think that ar?" His tone was indignant. "What call ar' he got to kill hisself? Sylv—our Sylv, I tell ye. My brother!"
"Because he hadn't anything left to live for! He was miserable," Adela answered, with vengeful emphasis. "It is Mr. Lance did it—sending me here. No! I did it, because I would not tell him what I felt. I wanted to be true to you."
The truth burst upon Dennie like a flood, and his fierce temper rose to meet it. For an instant a blinding light flashed dazzingly by across everything that surrounded him; he grew giddy, and Adela had no more important existence in his eyes than the table and the chairs around him, or the lifeless walls of the room. His single desire was, in his rage, to destroy something, to create havoc and ruin, answering to the ruin of his own hopes. But the next instant he felt as if he were among the pines, with his gun aimed at Sylv; and the thought that Sylv at this very instant might be lying dead somewhere brought a ghastly picture before his eyes. The whirl of maddening light passed away, and he stood humiliated, mournful, calm, motionless.
"Then it's true at last!" he said, hoarsely. "You loved that man—my brother—and he loved you."
For a moment Adela could not speak. Her lips moved, without sound. At last she answered: "Yes. But I never told him, and he said nothing to me. 'Twas only after we came here."
Dennie replied in a voice that made her think of the muffled breaking of the waves on the distant coast. "I was fearsome of it, Deely, but I swore I wouldn't think on't. It ar' best I know it now. We'll go and look for—for Sylv. If he ar' alive, I'll bring you to him."