He drew himself up, there where he was, standing by his hearth, and waited for her.
She came in softly and shut the door behind her and stood there as if she were afraid to come too near. Her face was all eyes; all eyes of terror, as before a grief too great, a bereavement too awful for any help or consolation. She spoke first.
"What is it, Ranny?" Her low voice went light like a tender hand that was afraid to touch his wound.
"She's left me; that's all."
Her lips parted, but no words came; they parted to ease the heart that fluttered with anguish in her breast. She moved a little nearer into the room, not looking at him, but with her head bowed slightly as if her shoulders bore Violet's shame. She stood a moment by the table, looking at her own hand as it closed on the edge, the fingers working up and down on the cloth. It might have been the hand of another person, for all she was aware of its half-convulsive motion.
"Oh, Ranny, dear—" At last she breathed it out, the soul of her compassion, and all her hushed sense of his bereavement.
"Did you know?"
She shook her head, slowly, closing in an extremity of negation the eyes that would not look at him.
"No—No—" It was as if she had said, "Who could have known it?" Yet her voice had an uncertain sound.
"But you had an idea?"