"Charles!" she exclaimed, springing off the sofa, her cheeks flushing hotly with surprise and pleasure.
But another glance at his face, and her heart sank within her, for its expression almost terrified her.
He closed the door and came and stood opposite to where she was, looking as though he would have struck her.
She quailed visibly before his menacing glance. Then resolutely regained the mastery over herself, and drawing up her figure proudly, she said,
"Do you know this is my room? I wonder how you dare come here."
"Your room? Well, what if it is, I care not," he replied. "I am reckless of everything."
"But I am not; and—and," she hesitated, and tried again to steady her beating heart, "what—what has happened, Charles, that you look so strangely?"
"Happened? Can you ask me what has happened, you who have wrecked the hopes of my whole life."
"I, Charles? You talk in riddles; I do not understand you."
"You dare not say that!" exclaimed he, hoarsely. "You know well that I loved her with all my heart and soul, and you—you schemed to draw her from me. I would have laid down my life for her; and you guessed it, and told me she loved another, and, like a fool, I believed you. You have driven me to despair; her to a life-long living death; and this, all this, I have dared to come and tell you."