Your words are life and death to me now." He still held her with loosened arms but did not answer her.

He sat, looking out into the middle of the room with fixed eyes, and he felt that drops of perspiration were on his brow.

And he knew that the other woman was glaring at him with the eyes of an injured lioness, though he did not dare to turn his own to her face.

"Fred, tell me; tell me." And Kate rose up, with her knees upon the sofa, bending over him, gazing into his countenance and imploring him.
"There must be disappointment," he said; and he did not know the sound of his own voice.
"What disappointment?
Speak to me.

What disappointment ?" "Disappointment!" shrieked the mother.