"Don't," she whispered. "You frighten me. You remind me of him."
The words recalled Gordon to himself. There was something else he wished to know. What was it? He beat his forehead with the palms of his hands in the effort to recollect. If only he could banish Hawke from his mind until she had gone! At last the question took shape.
"The letters he was reading to you?"
"They were notes and appointments written when we were both at Poonah," she answered, submissively. "I never thought that he would keep them, though I might have known he would."
"And the three he has still?"
"They were the only real letters I ever wrote to him. There were four, but I burned one to-night."
"Yes! I saw."
"I wrote them on the way home, from Calcutta, Aden, Brindisi and the last from London the evening I arrived."
"You have never written since?"
"Never! Nor have I seen him since until he compelled me to come to-night."