"You look as if you did."
"Well, it is a relief; and in this world so seldom the right person seems to die...."
"Oh, hush!" she said, inexpressibly shocked and distressed.
"Anne, I know you try to be honest, but you have a crooked way of looking at things."
"I do not think I have, and," she added, plucking up a little spirit, "you have no right to say so; and the subject is so terribly painful to me, I thought it would be equally painful to you."
"You don't understand the question," he said, with something of his old violence. "I am ready to destroy myself when I think I ever gave that man an opportunity of seeing poor Margaret, and now that he is gone I cannot pretend to regret him. His death has ended a terrible complication."
"I cannot follow your way of thinking," Mrs. Dorriman said, feeling somehow that this did not sound right.
"Well, you had best leave me just now, and when you have quite disentangled your ideas we can renew the subject. I never knew such a brain as yours, it seems to be generally in a hopeless state of muddle about everything." This complimentary speech nearly reduced her to tears, and she hurried from the room only to be immediately called back.
"I am a brute and you must forgive me, Anne," he said; "and there is another thing I want to speak to you about."
His voice sounded strange to her, and looking at him she saw that he was agitated.