She placed a hand upon his sleeve.

"My poor Richard..." she began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing angrily--a mere cackle of irritability.
"Odso!" he interrupted her.

"It is a thought late for this mock kindliness!" Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been standing.

Ruth shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
"Richard!" she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
"Richard!" He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it.

"Had you known any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause for this affair," he chid her peevishly.
"What are you saying ?" she cried, and it occurred to her at last that Richard was afraid.