"Don't go to them," she cried. "Don't listen to them."
"Who are they?" he asked.
"My brothers. I have not had time to tell you, but I will tell you now."
She put her arms about his neck as if to hold him.
"What have they come for?"
"To tell you some falsehood, and so revenge themselves on me. I know it, I feel it. Ah, a woman's instinct is sure. But, dear Michael, you will not receive them. Refuse, and I will tell you such a story. And you will laugh——"
"Let me go, Greeba," he said, unloosing the grip of her tightening arms, and the next moment he was gone from the room. Then all the spirit of the woman arose in Greeba, and, throwing aside her vague fears, she resolved, as only a woman could, in the cruel hour when a dear heart seemed to be slipping away from her, that, come what would, she should hold to her husband at all hazards, and that whatever her brothers might say against her, let it be true or false, if it threatened to separate her from him, she must deny it. What matter about the truth? Her love was before everything. And who was to disprove her word? Jason alone could do so, and his tongue was sealed forever in a silence as deep as the grave's.
Michael Sunlocks went out of the room like a man in a dream: an ugly dream, a dream of darkening terrors undefined. He came back to it like one who has awakened to find that his dream has come true. Within one hour his face seemed to have grown old. He stooped, he stumbled on the floor, his limbs shook under him, he was a broken and sorrowful man. At sight of him Greeba could scarcely restrain an impulse to scream. She ran to him, and cried, "Michael, husband, what have they told you?"
At first he looked stupidly into her quivering face, and then glancing down at a paper he held in one hand he made an effort to conceal it behind him. She was too quick for him, and cried, "What is it? Show it me."
"It's nothing," he said; "nothing, love, nothing——"