And yet she did not speak bitterly nor angrily. Her feeling
was beyond all passion. It was the expression of a soul that had
suffered everything and could no longer feel. That was just it,
Tunis told himself. It explained her attitude, even the tone of her
voice. She had endured and seen so much misery and heartache that
there seemed nothing left for her to experience.
"Can you bear to tell me what misfortune took you to that place?" he
asked gently, yet fighting down all the time that desire to roar
with rage.
"Why do you not say 'crime,' Captain Latham?" she asked in that same
low, strained voice.
"Because I know that crime and you could not be associated, Miss
Macklin," he said hoarsely.
At that she began suddenly to weep. Not aloud, but with her hands
pressed over her eyes and her shoulders, shaking with long,
shuddering sobs which betrayed how the horror of past thoughts and
experiences controlled her when once she gave way. Tunis Latham
could have behaved like a madman. That berserk rage that had seized
him in the restaurant welled up in his heart now. He gripped the
back of the bench till the slat cracked. But there was no opponent
here upon whom he could vent his violence that he longed to express.
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