Her eyes still rested on his face, questioningly, appraisingly, as though she were seeking to estimate his preparedness for the ordeal before him, his ability to go through with it successfully, triumphantly. And in her mention of Langmaid he recognized that she had meant to sound a note of warning. She had intimated a consultation of the captains, a council of war. And yet he had never spoken to her of this visit. This proof of her partisanship, that she had come to him at the crucial instant, overwhelmed him.
“You know why I am here?” he managed to say. It had to do with the extent of her knowledge.
“Oh, why shouldn't I?” she cried, “after what you have told me. And could you think I didn't understand, from the beginning, that it meant this?”
His agitation still hampered him. He made a gesture of assent.
“It was inevitable,” he said.
“Yes, it' was inevitable,” she assented, and walked slowly to the mantel, resting her hand on it and bending her head. “I felt that you would not shirk it, and yet I realize how painful it must be to you.”
“And to you,” he replied quickly.
“Yes, and to me. I do not know what you know, specifically,—I have never sought to find out things, in detail. That would be horrid. But I understand—in general—I have understood for many years.” She raised her head, and flashed him a glance that was between a quivering smile and tears. “And I know that you have certain specific information.”
He could only wonder at her intuition.
“So far as I am concerned, it is not for the world,” he answered.