“Indeed?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Madam, permit me to tell you it was very foolish for you to write a note to an utter stranger.”
“But you—you did not seem like a stranger. You—why, it seemed that I had known you always!”
She half extended her hand, as if to rest it on his arm, but he drew back. A shadow came over her face, and a look of pain seemed to leap into her large dark eyes. Very expressive eyes they were. At first they had seemed full of innocence, but somehow there was something uncertain and shifty about them—something that gave their wide-open innocence the lie.
“Yes,” said Frank, regretting the necessity of speaking thus, yet feeling that he must, “it was very rash of you. You could know nothing of me. For all you knew I might be a rascal.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” she cried. “I knew you were not that! A rascal could not play the part of Dick Trueheart and make it so natural—so noble. I knew you had a good and noble heart. I knew you were the one man in all the wide world whom I could love!”
It was becoming more embarrassing for Merry. Somehow, there was a mingled timidity and unspeakable boldness about the woman that mystified him not a little. He wondered if she could be just right, mentally.
“Madam,” he said, “will you tell me at once what you want of me. My time is limited.”
“Now, don’t speak to me like that!” she almost sobbed. “It hurts me—here!”