Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/118

104 hands on her heaving breast and something in all her aspect that was like the first shock of a great accident. What he saw, without understanding it, was the final snap of her tremendous tension, the end of her wonderful false calm. He misunderstood it in fact, as he saw it give way before him: he sprang at the idea that the poor girl had received a blow—a blow which her self-control up to within a moment only presented as more touchingly borne. Vidal's absence was there as a part of it: the situation flashed into vividness. "His eagerness to leave you surprised me," he exclaimed, "and yours to make him go!" Tony thought again, and before he spoke his thought her eyes seemed to glitter it back. "He has not brought you bad news—he has not failed of what we hoped?" He went to her with compassion and tenderness: "You don't mean to say, my poor girl, that he doesn't meet you as you supposed he would?" Rose dropped, as he came, into a chair; she had burst into passionate tears. She threw herself upon a small table, burying her head in her arms, while Tony, all wonder and pity, stood above her and felt helpless as she sobbed. She seemed to have sunk under her wrong and to