On the contrary, he seemed quite startled by my remark.
"It is strange," he said, with a shudder, followed by the biggest sip of brandy-and-water he had taken yet.

"It must have been horrible--horrible!" he added to himself, his dark eyes staring into the fire.
"Ah!" said I, "it was even more horrible than you suppose or can ever imagine." I was not thinking of myself, nor of my love, nor of any particular incident of the fire that still went on burning in my brain.

My tone was doubtless confidential, but I was meditating no special confidence when my companion drew one with his next words.

These, however, came after a pause, in which my eyes had fallen from his face, but in which I heard him emptying his glass.
"What do you mean ?" he whispered.

"That there were other circumstances--things which haven't got into the papers ?" "God knows there were," I answered, my face in my hands; and, my grief brought home to me, there I sat with it in the presence of that stranger, without compunction and without shame.
He sprang up and paced the room.