"What you have told me to-night, has a significance that you cannot guess" (oh, could she not?) "It alters—it may alter—the whole course of my life. Mrs. Durand—Mary! you were always my friend, be my friend now. When you get her address, and you will get it—you must get it,—to-night, to-morrow—you will give it to me in the same hour—promise."
"Why should I promise?" she asked playfully, delighted to see the immovable Gilbert for once a prey to some powerful emotion.
He was pale—his very lips were trembling, big beads of perspiration stood upon his temples.
"Why should I tell you especially?"—she repeated, but looking in his face, she saw that he was too terribly in earnest to be in the mood for light badinage. Looking in his face, she read the answer.
"I see,—yes, you may depend on me."
Reassured by this pledge, he grasped her hand in silence, and rose to leave the box. But ere he departed, she turned her head over her shoulder, and murmured behind her fan, "I believe it is all going to come right at last.—And, Gilbert," lowering her voice to a whisper, "I always suspected that it was you."
"What's the matter? What has become of Lisle?" inquired her husband, looking sharply round as he heard the door close. "Where is he? Why has he gone away?"
"He was not in the mood for light comedy, my dear. He has just heard something of far more powerful interest than 'The Silver Churn,'" nodding her head impressively. "You remember a bet you made about him and Helen Denis, one evening in the Andamans?"
"I don't remember any bet—but I know you had some impossible idea in your head."
"Then I recollect the wager—distinctly—a new bonnet. And my idea may seem impossible, but it is true. It was not that odious puppy, Apollo Quentin, who was in love with Helen, it was,—as I repeatedly told you,—Gilbert Lisle. So to-morrow, my good Charles, I shall go to Louise's and invest—at your expense—in the smartest bonnet in London."