“Understand what? I speak of green and thou answerest of blue.”
“I answer as thou askest.”
“Thou answerest not at all.”
“No answer is also an answer,” he snarled, driven to bay. “Thou understandest well enough. Thyself saidst it was public talk.”
“Ah-h-h!” in a stifled shriek of despair. Her intuition divined everything. The shadowy, sinister suggestions she had so long beat back by force of will took form and substance. Her head fell back on the pillow, the eyes closed.
He stayed on, bending awkwardly over her.
“So sick! So sick! So sick!” moaned the grandmother.
“Thou sayest they have compassion on thee in their talk,” he murmured at last, half deprecatingly, half resentfully. “Have they none on me?”
Her silence chilled him. “But thou hast compassion, Sarah,” he urged. “Thou understandest.”
Presently she reopened her eyes.