Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/62

 you've come to tell me so yourself, haven't you? Tell me, Varge, that it isn't true."

A silence as of death fell upon the room. His hands tight-clasped at his sides, the skin over the knuckles as white as the marble in his face, Varge neither moved nor spoke. The veins in his temple swelled, and, throbbing, seemed to stand out like great blue welts raised from the blows of a whip-lash.

For a moment she stared at him, standing as one numbed, robbed of all power of movement; then heavily, as though drawn back by some invisible power, she retreated from him—and her hands clasping her face, elongating it as she pressed against her cheeks, seemed to accentuate the dawning horror that was creeping into it.

"Varge! Varge, is it true?" she cried wildly.

Varge's hands brushed back the clustered brown hair from the forehead, damp now with beads of agony.

"It is true," he said hoarsely.

She was swaying now again and seemed about to fall.

Lee reached out his hand to her and took her arm.

"Come, Mrs. Merton," he pleaded gently. "Come; let me take you from here."

"Wait!"—her face was colourless; her voice scarce above a whisper. "You have done this! It is true; oh, God, it is true! I did not know that such a being as you could live—that God created such monsters. Go! Go, from this house! How dared you come here—how dared they bring you here!" Her voice had risen—and distraught, almost insane with grief and outraged love, the bitter words, so foreign to the gentle, kindly lips, fell with cruel, blighting force on Varge.