"Indeed!" she said, dwelling upon the word with a peculiar and slightly incredulous inflection.
"No," he repeated, "I cannot mourn enough. But to make my state of mind intelligible to you—and it is vitally important to me to do so—it is necessary you should know what has happened. I cannot deny that I am very sad."
He bowed himself together, setting his elbows on his knees, pressing his hands against either side of his head.
"I have cause to be sad," he continued. "Involuntarily I have contributed to the commission of a crime. All the values are altered. I am become a stranger to myself. Therefore I ask just this of you, to hear me and to judge."
Surprised, impressed, alarmed even, Gabrielle St. Leger gathered herself back gravely in her gilded, long-seated pseudo-classic chair. The young man's genuine and undisguised trouble combined with his actual physical nearness to threaten her emotional equilibrium. More eagerly than she cared to admit even to herself had she looked forward to his return to Ste. Marie. Her disappointment was proportionate, causing her anger. The thought of the slight he had put upon her rankled. She was, or rather wished to be, angry still. But just now wishes and feeling ranged themselves in irritating opposition and conflict. And during the silence following his last strangely sorrowful and self-accusing words—he so very near to her, dejected, abstracted, with bent head—feeling gained, waxing masterful and intimate. The personal charm of the man, his distinction of appearance, his quick brain and eloquent speech, his unimpeachable sincerity, his virility—refined, but in no degree impaired by the artificial conditions of modern life—even his boyish outbreak of jealousy toward Lewis Byewater, stirred and agitated her, proving dangerous alike to her senses and her heart. The culminating moment of that terrible experience in René Dax's studio, when, half beside herself from the horror of madness and death, she had flung herself upon Adrian's breast, there finding safety and restoration to all the dear joys of living, presented itself to her memory with importunate insistence. Was it conceivable that she craved to have that moment repeat itself?
"Mr. Savage—you asked me to listen. I listen," she said, and her voice shook.
In response the young man looked up at her, a rather pitiful smile on his white face.
"Thank you—it was like this, then, chère Madame et amie," he said. "Pushed by certain sinister fears, without waiting to communicate with you or with any one, I went straight to England on receiving from her sister the announcement of my cousin's death. Letters had passed between us during the previous fortnight which rendered that announcement peculiarly and acutely distressing to me."
Adrian bent his head again and sat staring blindly at the floor.
"She had asked a pledge of me which neither in honor nor in honesty could I give," he said, bitterly. "My cousin was an admirable woman of business. I knew that all her worldly affairs were scrupulously regulated. I was in no way concerned in the distribution of her property. I went to attend her funeral as a tribute of regard and respect. I also went in the hope the sinister fears of which I have spoken might prove unfounded. I stayed in London, merely going down to Stourmouth for a few hours. It was a wretched, wretched day, the weather cold and wet."