She was standing in mid-apartment, dressed by an odd irony all in bridal
white, that yet was not as white as was her face. Her eyes looked like
two black stains, solemn and haunting as they fastened up on this
intruder who would not be refused. Her lips parted, but she had no word
for him. She just stared in a horror that routed all his audacity and
checked the masterfulness of his advance. At last he spoke.

"I see that you have heard," said he, "the lie that runs the
countryside. That is evil enough. But I see that you have lent an ear
to it; and that is worse."

She continued to regard him with a cold look of loathing, this child
that but two days ago had lain against his heart gazing up at him in
trust and adoration.

"Rosamund!" he cried, and approached her by another step. "Rosamund! I
am here to tell you that it is a lie."

"You had best go," she said, and her voice had in it a quality that made
him tremble.

"Go?" he echoed stupidly. "You bid me go? You will not hear me?"

"I consented to hear you more than once; refused to hear others who knew
better than I, and was heedless of their warnings. There is no more to
be said between us. I pray God that they may take and hang you."

He was white to the lips, and for the first time in his life he knew
fear and felt his great limbs trembling under him.