People generally did obey when Curtis spoke in that insistent manner.
Now he was quite near her, and his tone grew gentle again.
"The accident from which Monsieur de Courtois suffered was fatal," he said.
She looked at him, wide-eyed, alarmed, but assuredly not with the soul-sickened terror of a woman who loves when she hears that her lover is dead.
"Do you mean that he has been killed ?" she whispered.
"Yes." "Oh, poor fellow.

I have lost my only friend, and now, indeed, I am the most wretched girl in all the world." Flinging her clasped arms on the table, she hid her face in them, and sobbed as though her heart would break.

Curtis placed a hand on her shoulder, and strove to calm her with such commonplace phrases as his dazed brain could dictate, but she wept bitterly, just as a child might weep if disappointed about the non-fulfillment of some object on which its heart was set.
"It sounds horrid--I know--" she murmured brokenly, "that I should--seem to be thinking--only of myself.

But--Monsieur de Courtois--was the one man--who could save me.

Now--I don't know--what will become of me.