“I have brought you bad news,” he said to her when they met.
Alexia’s face paled for an instant, as her eyes questioned him apprehensively. He told her what had happened, and the pros and cons of its probable effect upon the case.
“I am inclined to think we are not so very much worse off,” he said, “by the poor fellow’s death, shocking as it is, and greatly as we must regret it. You must not take it so much to heart, Countess,” he added, for he could see how dismayed and anxious the news had made her.
“Oh, but I fear, I fear,” she returned, in a low voice.
“Indeed you need not fear,” he urged encouragingly.
“When I think what is at stake how can I help it?”
He leaned forward. “Countess, you have no cause for fear,” he said half-interrogatively. The words were spoken more to give Gastineau’s suggestion the lie than to satisfy any doubt in his own mind. Next moment he hated himself for the inflexion that made them seem a question. With the swift intuition of a clever woman she divined the subtle equivocalness of the speech. Perhaps she felt it was not altogether uncalled-for, that it was reasonable. She looked at him steadily, frankly, and her look sealed his self-condemnation.
“I have only one cause for fear,” she said, “a miscarriage of justice, the possible success of a vile slander.”
“I am sure of that, Countess,” he replied, with a warmth bred of repentance. “And I should think none the less of you if your fear extended farther. But I have no dread at all of the issue of this case, and wish I could infect you with my certainty.”
“I think you have,” she responded, with an effort at conviction. “But in this world things go curiously wrong sometimes, and, while there is suspense, there must, to a woman, at least, be fear.”