“And if he says, ‘No, he is not dead,’ what then?” fiercely interrupted Charlotte.
“Then you can tell me privately, and I must depart the way I came. But I don’t depart without being satisfied of the fact,” pointedly added Mr. Pain, as if he had not entire and implicit reliance upon Charlotte’s word. “My firm belief is that he is dead, and that Verrall will tell you he is dead. In that case I am a free man to-morrow.”
Charlotte turned her head towards him, terrible anger in her tone, and in her face. “And how is your reappearance to be accounted for to those who look upon you as dead?”
“I don’t care how,” indifferently answered Rodolf. “I did not spread the report of my own death. If you did, you can contradict it.”
“If I did do it, it was to save your reputation,” returned Charlotte, scarcely able to speak in her passion.
“I know,” said Rodolf Pain. “You feared something or other might come out about your husband, and so you thought you’d kill me off-hand. Two for yourself and one for me, Charlotte.”
“If my coming back is so annoying to you, we can live apart,” he resumed. “You pretty well gave me a sickener before I went away. As you know.”
“This must be an amusing dialogue to Mr. George Godolphin!” fumed Charlotte.
“May-be,” replied Rodolf Pain, his tone sad and weary. “I have been so hardly treated between you and Verrall, Charlotte, that I don’t care who knows it.”