"Geoffrey, why did you go away?" she asked, looking up at that wild face with infinite terror in her own.
The restless eyes, the convulsive working of the dry hot lips told their story only too plainly, the story of a mind distraught.
"Dear Geoffrey!" she said gently, with unspeakable pity for this human wreck, "there can be no marriage to-day. We are all in great trouble—about Allan."
"About Allan—always about Allan!" he interrupted savagely. "What has Allan to do with the matter? It is our wedding-day, yours and mine. I don't want Allan for my best man."
"There can be no marriage while Allan is ill, lying in your house, so nearly murdered; perhaps even yet to die from that cruel usage. They are looking for his murderer, Geoffrey. Was it wise for you to come back to this place, knowing that?"
"Knowing what?"
"That Allan's mother is determined to find the man who so nearly killed her son."
"What have I to do with her determination? I shall neither hinder nor help her."
Oh, the crafty smile, the malice and the cunning in that face, a look which Suzette had never seen till now! A look which made that once splendid countenance seem the face of a stranger.
She shrank from him involuntarily. He saw the sudden look of repulsion, and tightened his grasp upon her arm, until she gave a cry of pain.