fast becoming insupportable to me, I confronted him with my proudest
look.

"You must excuse me," said I, "if I do not linger to discuss a
matter whose consequences just now are more important to us than the
fact itself. While your mother lies insensible I cannot rest
comfortable away from her side. You will therefore allow me to
return to her."

"In a moment," he replied. "There are one or two questions it would
please me to have you answer first." And his manner took on a charm
that robbed his words of all peremptoriness, and made it difficult,
if not impossible, for me to move. "You have spoken of Miss
Reynolds," he resumed; "have told me that she declared upon her
dying bed that the relations between Mr. Barrows and herself were
very happy. Were you with her then? Did you know her well?"

"She was my room-mate," I returned.

It was a blow; I saw it, though not a muscle of his face quivered.
He had not expected to hear that I was upon terms of intimacy with
her.

"I loved her," I went on, with a sense of cruel pleasure that must
have sprung from the inward necessity I felt to struggle with this
strong nature. "The proof that she loved me lies in the fact that
she has made me heir to all her little savings. We were friends," I
added, seeing he was not yet under sufficient control to speak.

"I see," he now said, moving involuntarily between me and the door.