Lord Stair’s usual pallor deepened. He tightened his lips and would not speak; his wife considered him with baffled eyes, hesitated, then broke into open appeal.
“I would take your word,” she cried.
With a little kindness of voice or tone or look, with a gentle gesture, a denial of the guilt that was at least not his, he could have won her now, won her to believe in him, to stand by him; he knew it but he would not soften, retract or explain, not by so much as a little word would his pride deign to bridge the gulf between them.
He stared at her coldly with a bitter smile.
“Madam, I shall not offer you my word,” he answered. “It is of little matter what you think of me.”
She moved away from him quivering, with outraged eyes.
“Very well,” she said below her breath, “I shall know what to think of you. If you did this thing—if the blood of those babes is on your head.”
He rose suddenly; the George hanging to the collar of knots and roses heaved and glittered with his angry breathing.
“Keep this talk for those who are your usual company, madam,” he said fiercely. “What do you think the brats of savages are to me?”
And he swung out of the recess into the ball-room.