"Will you be frank with me if I do?"
"Why, yes," she said, and her face was all wonder and all concern. "You hurt me--no, not your hands, but your distrust."
CHAPTER XVI
[AN UNSATISFACTORY EXPLANATION]
We went into the house, but no farther than the hall. For the moment we were come there she placed herself in front of me. I remember that the door of the house was never shut, and through the opening I could see a shoulder of the hill and the stars above it, and hear the long roar of the waves upon the beach.
"We are good friends, I hope, you and I," she said. "Plain speech is the privilege of such friendship. Speak, then, as though you were speaking to a man. Wherein have I not been frank with you?"
There must be, I thought, some explanation which would free her from all suspicion of deceit. Else, how could she speak with so earnest a tongue or look with eyes so steady?
"As man to man, then," I answered, "I am grieved I was not told that Cullen Mayle had come secretly to Tresco and had thence escaped."
"Cullen!" she said, in a wondering voice. "He was on Tresco! Where?"
I constrained myself to answer patiently.