Page:The Tsar's Window.djvu/274

 My heart sank, for I thought he had come for my answer; but I spoke with a brave voice, which did not betray my fluttering heart.

"How is this? I thought you were at the theatre."

"So I was," he responded, drawing one of the hard, uncomfortable chairs nearer the table, and throwing himself into it opposite me. "I told them I would come home and see how you were; for we were talking of you, and of our fears that you were more ill than you would confess."

"That was kind of you," I said absently.

"I had something to say to you, also," he continued,—"a statement to make, for which I have been watching my opportunity."

"Yes," I said faintly, "I know."

"I fancy that you do not know. You have quite a different idea from mine."

I looked at him inquiringly; but his face was as impassive as a block of wood, and instead of a pair of eyes I encountered an eyeglass which contorted one side of the face, and on which the light made bewildering reflections.

"I think," he went on, "that you are in some trouble,—trouble of mind. I take strange fancies sometimes; and if I am wrong, you must set me right. But the suspicion has entered my mind that possibly your suffering comes from your reluctance to tell me that you have failed to succeed, while I have been away, in your effort to care for me. I am impelled by some strange instinct—or, call it reason, if you like—to tell you that I read the death-blow to my hopes when I had been with