pronounced those words, she rose slowly and stood silent for a
spell, her eyes seeking his with an awful look that he dared
not meet. At last:

"Oh, you rave," she protested, "it is the fever."

"Nay, child, my mind is clear, and what I have said is true."

"True?" she echoed, no louder than a whisper, and her eyes grew
round with horror. "True that you and my uncle are the
butchers who slew their cousin, this man's wife, and sought to
murder him as well - leaving him for dead? True that you are
the thieves who claiming kinship by virtue of that very
marriage have usurped his estates and this his castle during
all these years, whilst he himself went an outcast, homeless
and destitute? Is that what you ask me to believe?"

"Even so," he assented, with a feeble sob.

Her face was pale - white to the very lips, and her blue eyes
smouldered behind the shelter of her drooping lids. She put
her hand to her breast, then to her brow, pushing back the
brown hair by a mechanical gesture that was pathetic in the
tale of pain it told. For support she was leaning now against
the wall by the head of his couch. In silence she stood so
while you might count to twenty; then with a sudden vehemence
revealing the passion of anger and grief that swayed her:

"Why," she cried, "why in God's name do you tell me this?"