Since Hal told him, in a few, rather abrupt words, her story, he had scarcely looked at her. When she first entered his room so unexpectedly, his eyes had searched her face as if he would read instantly what she had come for?… what she had learnt?… Before hers, his gaze fell.
“I have come from Lorraine,” she said, and he understood that she knew all.
A dull red crept over his face and neck, and then died away, leaving him of an ashy paleness. He was standing by his desk, and he reached out one hand and rested it on some books, gripping the backs of them with a grip that made his knuckles stand out like white knots. He did not ask Hal to sit down. Commonplace amenities died in the stress of the moment.
She stood in the middle of the room, very straight and very still. In a close-fitting travelling-dress she looked unusually slim, almost boyish, and something about her attitude rather suggested a youthful knight, sword in hand, come with vengeance to the Transgressor. Yet, even in his shame and stunned perplexity, Hermon lost no shred of dignity.
He towered above her, with bend head, rigid, white face, grave, downcast eyes, and in spite of every reproach her attitude seemed to hurl at him, he yet wore the look of nobility that was his birthright.
“When do you think I should go?” he asked at last, with difficulty.
“We ought to cross tonight.”
“Tonight!—I—I—have a very important case tomorrow. It will not last long. It matters a great deal.”
“I know,” was the short, uncompromising answer.
He looked up with a swift glance of inquiry. Then he said quietly: