“I have had nothing to do with them,” he said.
“But you know something about them.”
“Why do you think so?”
“I can tell from your manner,” she said triumphantly.
“I know nothing for certain, nothing precise,” said Ilam—“nothing that I can tell you—nothing that I dare tell you.”
“Dearest,” she remarked, with a faint acidity, “it seems to me that you have come here to-day in order not to tell me things.”
He deprecated her tone with an appealing gesture.
“I can tell you, at any rate, this,” he said, “that your brother’s life is no longer in danger—of that I am sure.”
“You are atoning,” she smiled.
“Which is more than can be said of my life,” Ilam proceeded, not heeding her smile.