She looked up at him.
"Don't stop to think," he commanded; "tell me."
Oh, the intense relief of having a burdensome secret torn from your keeping! Lassie felt that when in trouble, a man was the friend to find—even before one's début.
"You won't ever let her know that I told?" she faltered.
"Of course not."
"She didn't ask me really to promise; she only said that I should be the only one to ever know."
"Never mind, I don't count. Go on."
"Well, she is going to marry—" and then she told him, with many halts and gasps, who; and then she told him further, when.
Ingram listened, silent, turning white all about his mouth. "She can't do it," he said, after a minute. "That man may die any hour. It said so in last night's paper."
"She is going to do it," Lassie said; "she doesn't mind his dying—that is, she doesn't mind his dying as most people do."