“You must forgive me coming at such an hour; he's told me, you see.” He expected her to flinch and gasp; but she only clasped her hands together on her knees, and said:
“Yes?”
Then horror and discomfort rose up in him, afresh.
“An awful business!”
Her whisper echoed him:
“Yes, oh! yes! Awful—it is awful!”
And suddenly realising that the man must have fallen dead just where he was sitting, Keith became stock silent, staring at the floor.
“Yes,” she whispered; “Just there. I see him now always falling!”
How she said that! With what a strange gentle despair! In this girl of evil life, who had brought on them this tragedy, what was it which moved him to a sort of unwilling compassion?
“You look very young,” he said.