“Where is he?” she said.  “Where is he, David?”

The suddenness of the question staggered me; I hesitated.

“I do not know,” I answered.

I could not look into her face and say it.  The years of torment and suffering were written there in characters not to be mistaken.  Sarah Temple, the beauty, was dead indeed.  The hope which threatened to light again the dead fires in the woman’s eyes frightened me.

“Ah,” she said sharply, “you are deceiving me.  It is not like you, David.  You are deceiving me.  Tell me, tell me, for the love of God, who has brought me to bear chastisement.”  And she gripped my arm with a strength I had not thought in her.

“Listen,” I said, trying to calm myself as well as her.  “Listen, Mrs. Temple.”  I could not bring myself to call her otherwise.

“You are keeping him away from me,” she cried.  “Why are you keeping him away?  Have I not suffered enough?  David, I cannot live long.  I do not dare to die—­until he has forgiven me.”

I forced her, gently as I might, to sit on the bench, and I seated myself beside her.

“Listen,” I said, with a sternness that hid my feelings, and perforce her expression changed again to a sad yearning, “you must hear me.  And you must trust me, for I have never pretended.  You shall see him if it is in my power.”

She looked at me so piteously that I was near to being unmanned.

“I will trust you,” she whispered.

“I have seen him,” I said.  She started violently, but I laid my hand on hers, and by some self-mastery that was still in her she was silent.  “I saw him in Louisville a month ago, when I returned from a year’s visit to Philadelphia.”

I could not equivocate with this woman, I could no more lie to her sorrow than to the Judgment.  Why had I not foreseen her question?

“And he hates me?” She spoke with a calmness now that frightened me more than her agitation had done.

“I do not know,” I answered; “when I would have spoken to him he was gone.”

“He was drunk,” she said.  I stared at her in frightened wonderment.  “He was drunk—­it is better than if he had cursed me.  He did not mention me?  Or any one?”

“He did not,” I answered.

She turned her face away.

“Go on, I will listen to you,” she said, and sat immovable through the whole of my story, though her hand trembled in mine.  And while I live I hope never to have such a thing to go through with again.  Truth held me to the full, ludicrous tragedy of the tale, to the cheap character of my old Colonel’s undertaking, to the incident of the drum, to the conversation in my room.  Likewise, truth forbade me to rekindle her hope.  I did not tell her that Nick had come with St. Gre to New Orleans, for of this my own knowledge was as yet not positive.  For a long time after I had finished she was silent.

“And you think the expedition will not get here?” she asked finally, in a dead voice.