He stood in the centre of the room, a livid hue crossing his face, knees knocking together in weakness of extreme terror, hands clutching at the table for support. His entire being was transformed.
Marie came forward, trembling. 'What is it? Tell me, Hugh—'
He reached out towards the paper, and tried in vain to speak. The shock had been so terrible, so fearfully sudden.
'It is that, then,' she said, with a strange light growing in her eyes. 'Would you like to hear the rest?'
She held the sheet beneath the lamplight. 'Information has been given by a man who for some time was believed to be dead, hunter Sinclair of St Andrews.'
It was all over now. There could be nothing worse than this, so strength, the unreasoning strength of despair, liberated his tongue and brought energy back to the limbs. He forgot the presence of his wife, everything save his awful position. He stood surrounded by a blood-red atmosphere, where lightnings blazed and thunders crashed; before him he saw the limp figure of Riel swaying at the rope's end; in his ears sounded the mad shouts and execrations of the people. He was a man by himself, outside all mercy, with a country shrieking for his blood.
'Sinclair is dead!' he cried, in an awful voice. 'He never rose, never moved. I could not have missed my aim. He is dead—dead.'
His wife shrank in her turn, the horrible truth worming into her heart.
'Speak!' she shouted at him. 'Tell me the meaning of this.'
He did not notice her. 'There is no one else. Spencer had no proofs. Sinclair is dead.'