"
"Gemma! But it's--it's true!"
She shrank slowly away from him, and stood
quite still, her eyes wide and dark with horror, her
face as white as the kerchief at her neck. A great
icy wave of silence seemed to have swept round
them both, shutting them out, in a world apart,
from the life and movement of the street.
"Yes," he whispered at last; "the steamers--
I spoke of that; and I said his name--oh, my God!
my God! What shall I do?"
He came to himself suddenly, realizing her presence
and the mortal terror in her face. Yes, of
course, she must think------
"Gemma, you don't understand!" he burst out,
moving nearer; but she recoiled with a sharp cry:
"Don't touch me!"
Arthur seized her right hand with sudden
violence.
"Listen, for God's sake! It was not my fault;
I----"
"Let go; let my hand go! Let go!"
The next instant she wrenched her fingers away
from his, and struck him across the cheek with her
open hand.
A kind of mist came over his eyes. For a little
while he was conscious of nothing but Gemma's
white and desperate face, and the right hand which
she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her cotton
dress.
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