"Tell me all—that lesser thing."
Rand turned from the fire and, coming to the great chair against whose back she leaned, knelt in its flowered lap and bowed his forehead upon her hands. "I am glad," he said, in a voice so low that she bent to hear it,—"I am glad now that I have no son."
There was a silence while the rain dashed against the window-panes and the thunder rolled overhead; then Jacqueline pressed her cheek against his bowed head. "What have you done?" she whispered. "Tell me—oh, tell me!"
After a moment he told her. "I have killed a man."
"Killed—It was by accident!"
"No. It was not accident. I came upon him by accident—I'll claim no more than that. The black rage was there to blind me, make me deaf—mole and adder! But it was not accident, what I did. I'll not cheat you here, and I'll not cheat myself. The name of it is murder."
He felt her hands quiver beneath his forehead, and he put up his own and clasped her wrist. "Are you thinking, 'I should have left him in the tobacco-fields'? As for me, I know that I ought never to have spoken to you there beneath the apple tree."
"Lewis, who was the man?"
He made no answer, and after a moment or two, numbed and grey, had passed, she needed none. The truth fell like a stroke from glowing iron. With a cry she dragged her hands from Rand's, left the chair, and, crossing the room, flung herself down beside the chintz-covered couch and cowered there with a hidden face. Rand arose and, walking to the window, stared at the veil of rain and the stabbing lightning. The clock ticked, a log upon the hearth parted with a soft sound, from the back of the house came faintly the homely cheer of the servants' voices. How deadly, how solemnly still, how wet and cold, was now a rocky strand upon the river road! He left the window and, coming to the couch, looked down upon the crouching figure of his wife. His brain was not numbed; it was pitilessly awake, and he suffered. The name of his star was Wormwood.
At last she stirred, lifted her head from her arm, and arose, moving stiffly and slowly as though she had grown old. Her face was drawn and colorless. She moved, mechanically, to the fire, laid fresh wood upon it, and, taking a small broom from the corner, made the hearth clean; then, returning, sat down upon the couch that was printed with bright roses and held out her hands. "Come," she said, in her low, musical voice. "Come, tell me—"