“I may be wrong. Perhaps it was not so bad. I was in a cruel hurry, and so was Doctor Frank. Perhaps they said a discharged convict.”
“What else?” asked Zerviah, lifting his eyes to hers.
“They said you were just out of a seven years’ imprisonment for manslaughter. They said you killed a man—for jealousy, I believe; something about a woman.”
“What else?” repeated the nurse, steadily.
“I told them I did not believe one word of it!” cried Marian Dare.
“Thank you, madam,” said Zerviah Hope, after a scarcely perceptible pause; “but it is true.”
He drew one fierce breath.
“She was beautiful,” he said. “I loved her; he ruined her; I stabbed him!”
He had grown painfully pale. He wanted to go on speaking to this woman, not to defend or excuse himself, not to say anything weak or wrong, only to make her understand that he did not want to excuse himself; in some way, just because she was a woman, to make her feel that he was man enough to bear the burden of his deed. He wanted to cry out to her, “You are a woman! Oh, be gentle, and understand how sorry a man can be for a deadly sin!” but his lips were parched. He moved them dryly; he could not talk.