Her voice had not faltered for a moment; she had spoken with an increasing rapidity of utterance. But suddenly she broke off short, looked helplessly at Ordham, her face, which had looked flushed and full as she spoke, becoming white and pinched once more, the defiant glare dying out of her eyes. He had stood motionless during the horrid sordid story, looking straight at her, his face almost vacant, as if his brain had emptied itself of every thought, that it might receive to the brim all she chose to pour into it. So she had seen him many times at a new or absorbing play. He merely looked paler, his eyes darker. She stopped, held her breath, then:
“Well?” she stammered. “Well?”—
The colour came back to his face, and with it an intense deepening of expression. He drew out his watch, then took the six telegrams from his pocket and laid them on the table between them.
“I am sorry you chose to-night to tell me that story,” he said, in his ordinary tones, “for, as you will see by reading these telegrams, I must take the eleven o’clock express, and it is now quarter past ten. Hines is no doubt at the door—”
But she interrupted him with a cry that was almost a scream. “Good God! Do you mean to say that it makes no difference? What are you made of?”
“It might have made a difference a year ago. Now it makes none whatever—or—yes—it is odd you should not have guessed that the more you made me pity you the more I should love you. And then—I had imagined very much all you have told me, taken it for granted, at least. Perhaps it is just as well, after all, that you selected to-night for the tale, if I had to hear it, for although determined to come to an understanding with you, I was in no humour for love-making. We have now wiped the thing off the slate, and, if you don’t mind, when I return we will not refer to it.”
She glanced at the telegrams, dropped into a chair, and covered her face with her shaking hands. “Your wife will die,” she moaned, “your wife will die!”
“I have not the least idea she will die. She is as strong as you are. I dare not assume that these telegrams were sent merely to frighten me and bring me back; no doubt excitement has made her ill, and in that case there may be danger. Besides, she has lost her child. I shall go, of course. But I shall return at the earliest possible moment. We will then make our plans as deliberately as more fortunate people do when about to marry. I am capable of being faithful to one woman for a lifetime, and I shall be faithful to you. We can be unimaginably happy. But I must not miss the train.”
He went round the table, and she stood up, shaking. “Not to-night!” she said. “I cannot kiss you so soon after that story. It has brought the past too close.”
“Very well.” He took both her hands, however, and bending his face looked close into her eyes.