She shuddered violently at that. The glow of eye and cheek faded, and tears rose instead. She walked to a window, and with her back to them dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. Then she turned.
“Is that all?” she said.
“Good God!” Bishop cried. He stared, nonplussed. “Is that all?” he said. “Would you have more?”
“Neither more nor less,” she answered—between tears and smiles, if his astonished eyes did not deceive him. “For now I know—I know why he left me, why he is not here.”
“Good lord!”
“If you thought, sir,” she continued, drawing herself up and speaking with indignation, “that because he was in danger, because he was proscribed, because a price was set on his head, I should desert him, and betray him, and sell his secrets to you—I, his wife—you were indeed mistaken!”
“But damme!” Mr. Bishop cried in amazement almost too great for words, “you are not his wife!”
“In the sight of Heaven,” she answered firmly, “I am!” She was shaking with excitement. “In the sight of Heaven I am!” she repeated solemnly. And so real was the feeling that she forgot for the moment the situation in which her lover’s flight had left her. She forgot herself, forgot all but the danger that menaced him, and the resolution that never, never, never should it part her from him.
Mr. Bishop would fain have answered fittingly, and to that end sought words. But he found none strong enough.
“Well, I am dashed!” was all he could find to say. “I am dashed!” Then—the thing was too much for one—he sought support in Mrs. Gilson’s eye. “There, ma’am,” he said vehemently, extending one hand, “I ask you! You are a woman of sense! I ask you! Did you ever? Did you ever, out of London or in London?”