“Ah, how you tempt me!” she whispered.
“In less than an hour we can be out of the river, homeward bound. For God’s sake come—now,” I said passionately.
But I failed. She started as if from a dream and shivered. “You made me forget, but——”
“Remember only your happiness and the freedom from all these troubles. Trust me.”
She shook her head, sighed deeply, and withdrew her hand. “It is not that I distrust. But there is my mother. If I were to play these men false they would visit it upon her.”
“But she can come with us. Let me see her.”
“It is impossible. Impossible. Would to Heaven it were not?”
“Then I’ll try the other way,” I said. “But if I fail——”
After a pause she lifted her eyes to mine, let them rest there a second and then smiled, but shook her head despondently again.
“It must be as you will,” I said. “And now there is one thing more. It may be necessary for me to communicate with you. If I send one of my people to your house, will you see him?”