“It is in your interests,” I pleaded; “it is for your sake that I speak. If your husband heard you⁠—”

“It would not surprise him if he did hear me.”

She made that strange reply with a weary calmness and coldness. The change in her manner, when she gave the answer, startled me almost as much as the answer itself.

“Not surprise him!” I repeated. “Laura! remember what you are saying⁠—you frighten me!”