She looked at him in a kind of terror. Why was he so pale--an embodied grief? Warkworth's death was not a mortal stroke for him.
He came closer, and still Julie's eyes held him. Was it her fault, this--this shadowed countenance, these suggestions of a dumb strain and conflict, which not even his strong youth could bear without betrayal? Her heart cried out, first in a tragic impatience; then it melted within her strangely, she knew not how.
She sat up in bed and held out her hands. He thought of that evening in Heribert Street, after Warkworth had left her, when she had been so sad and yet so docile. The same yearning, the same piteous agitation was in her attitude now.
He knelt down beside the bed and put his arms round her. She clasped her hands about his neck and hid her face on his shoulder. There ran through her the first long shudder of weeping.
"He was so young!" he heard her say through sobs. "So young!"
He raised his hand and touched her hair tenderly.
"He died serving his country," he said, commanding his voice with difficulty. "And you grieve for him like this! I can't pity him so much."
"You thought ill of him--I know you did." She spoke between deep, sobbing breaths. "But he wasn't--he wasn't a bad man."
She fell back on her pillow and the tears rained down her cheeks.
Delafield kissed her hand in silence.