"Is this true?"
Her eyes are seeking his. He looks down on her, answering constrainedly:
"It is perfectly true, Mrs. Winans."
"Why have you kept it from me?" in some wonder this.
"We intended telling you, of course, before we left; but it is such a harrowing topic—the sufferings of those poor yellow fever patients—that I have hesitated in mentioning it to you."
"Was that your only reason?"
No answer. He cannot bear to speak.
"I know," she resumes, "why you have not told me. You feared I would want to go, too, and so kept it from me in your good, true, brotherly love; but in this case," smiling willfully up into his disturbed face, "your painstaking has been 'Love's Labor Lost.' I have been making my mind up to go all along, and now I mean to make the trip there under the protection of your mother and yourself—if you will permit me."
The murder is out. She looks away from him demurely, waiting his reply. It comes, full of a shocked horror.