The color dropped out of his face as a flag drops to half-mast. "She is dead," he said, with absolute finality in his voice. "When did she die?" He stood staring straight ahead of him at the wall, ghastly with fright.
"No! no! She is not dead; she is well. Quite well; oh, very well. Go, David, my dear boy—oh, my dear boy! Go to Mr. Ferguson. He will tell you. But it is—terrible, David."
He went, dazed, and saying, "Why, but what is it? If she is not—not—"
Robert Ferguson met him on the threshold of the library, drew him in, closed the door, and looked him full in the face. "No, she isn't dead," he said; "I wish to God she were." Then he struck him hard on the shoulder. "David," he said harshly, "be a man; they've played a damned dirty trick on you. Yesterday she married Blair Maitland…. Take it like a man, and be thankful you are rid of her." He wheeled about and stood with his back to his niece's lover. He had guided the inevitable sword, but he could not witness the agony of the wound. There was complete stillness in the room; the ticking of the clock suddenly hammered in Robert Ferguson's ears; a cinder fell softly from the grate. Then he heard a long-drawn breath:
"Tell me, if you please, exactly what has happened."
Elizabeth's uncle, still with his back turned, told him what little he knew. "I don't know where they are," he ended; "I don't want to know. The scoundrel wrote to Nannie, but he gave no address. Elizabeth's letter to me is on my table; read it."
He heard David move over to the library table; he heard the rustle of the sheet of paper as it was drawn out of the envelope. Then silence again, and the clamor of the clock. He turned round, in time to see David stagger slightly and drop into a chair; perspiration had burst out on his forehead. He was so white around his lips that Robert Ferguson knew that for a moment his body shared the awful astonishment of his soul. "There's some whiskey over there," he said, nodding toward a side table. David shook his head. Then, still shuddering with that dreadful sickness, he spoke.
"She … has married—Blair? Blair?" he repeated, uncomprehendingly. He put his hand up to his head with that strange, cosmic gesture which horrified humanity has made ever since it was capable of feeling horror.
"Yes," Mr. Ferguson said grimly; "yes, Blair—your friend! Well, you are not the first man who has had a sweetheart—and a 'friend.' A wife, even—and a 'friend.' And then discovered that he had neither wife nor friend. Damn him."
"Damn him?" said David, and burst into a scream of laughter. He was on his feet now, but he rocked a little on his shaking legs. "Damnation is too good for him; may God—" In the outburst of fury that followed, even Robert Ferguson quailed and put up a protesting hand.