Instantly she went to him and put her hands on his shoulders, looking directly into his blue eyes with her clear, wide grey ones.
"Tell me your reason please, Frank. This isn't like you. You can't mean to be so selfish—even so cruel."
Frank's eyes held his wife's, but he showed no sign, either of flinching or yielding.
"I am sorry to have to say this to you, dear. I wish you could have been willing to do what I asked, without demanding my reason. But I can't let my wife go to Bryan; I can't let people think you and he care this much for each other. People would talk—there would be gossip. I am your husband and it is my place to safeguard you. You and Bryan never think of consequences—you are only impetuous children."
"So you mean—" Jack let her hands drop slowly from her husband's shoulders to her own sides, "you mean, that because of a little idle chatter—foolish, unkind gossip—oh, I know some of the neighbors have already talked of Bryan and me before this—you would keep me from the friend we both care so much for, at a time like this? I can't believe it of you, Frank."
"Then I am sorry to disappoint you, because I do mean it, Jack, dear. I suppose it does seem narrow and worldly to you, with your wider ideas of freedom and loyalty. But hard as this may be for us both, you must abide by my decision."
For another moment Jack remained silent, her face flooding first with color and then the color receding until she was curiously pale, so that the darkness of her lashes showed shadows on her white cheeks.
"I am sorry, Frank," she answered quietly, "but in this matter I can not accept your decision. I am a woman—not a child—and this is a matter for my conscience as well as yours. Even if I am wrong, whatever consequences I must suffer from your failing ever to see this as I do, I must go to Bryan if he is still alive."
Then Jack went quickly into her own room again.