When Marie Guernalec took leave of him, she avoided his eyes, but he spoke to her cordially and thanked her for her aid.
“Anything I can do, Jack?” inquired West, lingering, and then hurried downstairs to catch up with the rest.
Trent leaned over the banisters, listening to their footsteps and chatter, and then the lower door banged and the house was silent. He lingered, staring down into the blackness, biting his lips; then with an impatient movement, “I am crazy!” he muttered, and lighting a candle, went into the bedroom. Sylvia was lying on the bed. He bent over her, smoothing the curly hair on her forehead.
“Are you better, dear Sylvia?”
She did not answer, but raised her eyes to his. For an instant he met her gaze, but what he read there sent a chill to his heart and he sat down covering his face with his hands.
At last she spoke in a voice, changed and strained—a voice which he had never heard, and he dropped his hands and listened, bolt upright in his chair.
“Jack, it has come at last. I have feared it and trembled—ah! how often have I lain awake at night with this on my heart and prayed that I might die before you should ever know of it! For I love you, Jack, and if you go away I cannot live. I have deceived you;—it happened before I knew you, but since that first day when you found me weeping in the Luxembourg and spoke to me, Jack, I have been faithful to you in every thought and deed. I loved you from the first, and did not dare to tell you this—fearing that you would go away; and since then my love has grown—grown—and oh! I suffered!—but I dared not tell you. And now you know, but you do not know the worst. For him—now—what do I care? He was cruel—oh, so cruel!”