"Are you still as fond of him as ever, then?"With a movement, as though she despaired of words, she clasped her hands over her heart. And he said:
"I see."
He had the same strange feeling as on his first visit to her, and when through the chink in the curtains he had watched her kneeling--of pity mingled with some faint sexual emotion. And crossing to the fire he asked:
"May I wait for him?"
"Oh! Please! Will you sit down?"
But Keith shook his head. And with a catch in her breath, she said:
"You will not take him from me. I should die."He turned round on her sharply.
"I don't want him taken from you. I want to help you keep him. Are you ready to go away, at any time?""Yes. Oh, yes!"
"And he?"
She answered almost in a whisper:
"Yes; but there is that poor man."
"That poor man is a graveyard thief; a hyena; a ghoul--not worth consideration." And the rasp in his own voice surprised him.
"Ah!" she sighed. "But I am sorry for him. Perhaps he was hungry.
I have been hungry--you do things then that you would not. And perhaps he has no one to love; if you have no one to love you can be very bad. I think of him often--in prison."Between his teeth Keith muttered: "And Laurence?""We do never speak of it, we are afraid."
"He's not told you, then, about the trial?"
Her eyes dilated.
"The trial! Oh! He was strange last night. This morning, too, he got up early. Is it-is it over?""Yes."
"What has come?"
"Guilty."
For a moment Keith thought she was going to faint. She had closed her eyes, and swayed so that he took a step, and put his hands on her arms.
"Listen!" he said. "Help me; don't let Laurence out of your sight.
We must have time. I must see what they intend to do. They can't be going to hang this man. I must have time, I tell you. You must prevent his giving himself up."She stood, staring in his face, while he still held her arms, gripping into her soft flesh through the velvety sleeves.