"It is very extraordinary, all this!" said the astonished young captain, who was quite unprepared for such an outburst of feeling from the usually gay, nonchalant Willard Drummond. "Then you have not heard she was—"
"What?"
"Murdered!" said Captain Campbell.
"Murdered! Oh, Heaven!"
And with a deep groan that seemed tearing its way up through his anguished heart. Willard sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands.
Captain Campbell looked at him with the most unbounded amazement.
"Well, upon my soul!" he broke out at length, "if this doesn't surpass anything I ever dreamed of! I can understand feeling sorry and horrified at so atrocious a deed—I felt all that myself; but to take on in this way, is something beyond me, I must confess. Waiter, more coffee."
"Campbell, tell me all," said Willard, springing up and fiercely dashing back his long, black hair. "Who could have committed so base, so atrocious a deed? Oh! can there exist a being on earth, capable of committing so infernal a crime? Who is it?—speak and tell me; and may Heaven's heaviest curses rest upon him, now and for all eternity! Who had the heart to hurt one hair of her gentle head?"
"Drummond, my dear fellow, what means all this violent agitation? What was little Christie to you?"
The keen, searching look, the meaning tone, and probing question, brought him from his fierce outburst of remorse and anguish to a sense of the presence in which he stood. This was not the time or place for the revelation; nor was it to Captain Guy Campbell, that revelation was destined to be made. Controlling his agony of bitter sorrow, and still more bitter remorse, and feeling the necessity of calmly hearing all, by a tremendous effort, he subdued his fiercely excited feelings, and dropped in his seat, and said, while he shaded his face with his hands: