“Speak,” she said, “I am all attention.” She was struggling valiantly with herself.
Her coolness was feigned. Ah! what would she give if she were at liberty to tell Frank the whole strange and ghastly truth!
“I have put to you a question which you refuse to answer,” he said in a low, hard voice. “You have admitted that, by this silence of yours, you are protecting another man. Well—in that case I can only say that I must leave you in future to your friend’s protection. I hope he loves you better—better than I!”
“Leave me!” she gasped in a hoarse whisper. “You—you will leave me! Ah! no—no Frank,”—she shrieked in her despair, “you can’t mean that—you won’t let—”
But her lover had already turned upon his heel, and without further words he left the room—and the house.
She heard the front door slam, and then with a sudden cry of despair she flung herself upon the couch and buried her head among the silken cushions sobbing.