Royall said gravely:
"Charity--was you looking for me?"
She freed herself abruptly and fell back. "Me? No----" She set down the
candle on his desk. "I wanted some letter-paper, that's all." His face
contracted, and the bushy brows jutted forward over his eyes. Without
answering he opened the drawer of the desk, took out a sheet of paper
and an envelope, and pushed them toward her. "Do you want a stamp too?"
he asked.
She nodded, and he gave her the stamp. As he did so she felt that he was
looking at her intently, and she knew that the candle light flickering
up on her white face must be distorting her swollen features and
exaggerating the dark rings about her eyes. She snatched up the paper,
her reassurance dissolving under his pitiless gaze, in which she seemed
to read the grim perception of her state, and the ironic recollection
of the day when, in that very room, he had offered to compel Harney to
marry her. His look seemed to say that he knew she had taken the paper
to write to her lover, who had left her as he had warned her she would
be left.
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