And in the meantime you are requested not to pity
him.
Steel went straight to his wife. Tears were still in her eyes, but such
tears, and such eyes! It cost him an effort to say what he had to say,
and that was unusual in his case.
"Rachel," he said at length, in a tone as new as his reluctance, "I am
going to answer the question which you have so often asked me. I am
going to answer it with perfect honesty, and very possibly you will
never speak to me again. I shall be sorry for both our sakes if you do
anything precipitate, but in any case you shall act as you think best.
You know that I was exceedingly fond of Alec Minchin as a young man;
now, I am not often exceedingly fond of anybody, as you may also know by
this time. Before your trial I was convinced that you had killed my old
friend, whom I was so keen to see again that I came up to town by the
very first train after getting his letter. You had robbed me of the only
friend I had in England at the very moment when he needed me and I was
on my way to him. I could have saved his ship, and you had sent both him
and it to the bottom! That, I say candidly, was what I thought.
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