"Therefore you will tell me," cried Wogan.
[pg 326]
"Therefore I will not tell you," answered Gaydon. He had a very keen recollection of certain pages of poetry he had seen on the table at Schlestadt, of certain conversations in the berlin when he had feigned to sleep.
Wogan caught him by the arm.
"I must know. Here have I lost two hours out of one poor fortnight. I must know."
"Why?"
Gaydon stood quite unmoved, and with a remarkable sternness of expression. Wogan understood that only the truth would unlock his lips, and he cried,—
"Because unless I do, in a fortnight her Highness will refuse to marry the King." And he recounted to him the walk he had taken and the conversation he had held with Clementina that morning. Gaydon listened with an unfeigned surprise. The story put Wogan in quite a different light, and moreover it was told with so much sincerity of voice and so clear a simplicity of language, Gaydon could not doubt one syllable.
"I am afraid, my friend," said he, "my thoughts have done you some wrong—"