To Have & To Hold by Mary Johnson Chapter 36 Page 13

He looked at the floor, and they one and all held their peace.

“Madam,” I said to Lady Wyatt, “I have been watching your ladyship’s face. Will you tell me why it is so very full of pity, and why there are tears in your eyes?”

She shrank back in her chair with a little cry, and Rolfe stepped toward me, then turned sharply aside. “I cannot!” he cried, “I that know” —

I drew myself up to meet the blow, whatever it might be. “I demand of you my wife, Sir Francis Wyatt,” I said. “If there is ill news to be told, be so good as to tell it quickly. If she is sick, or hath been sent away to England” —

The Governor made as if to speak, then turned and flung out his hands to his wife.