The two were together, and all preliminary difficulties had been cleared for Robert to say what he had to say, in a manner to make the saying of it well-nigh impossible.

And yet silence might be misinterpreted by her.
He would have drawn her to his heart at one sign of tenderness.

There came none.

The girl was frightfully torn with a great wound of shame.
She was the first to speak.
"Do you believe what father says of my sister ?" "That she-- ?" Robert swallowed the words.

"No!" and he made a thunder with his fist.
"No!" She drank up the word.