He stopped and compressed his lips as her face flushed and her hand closed on his arm.
“Go on!” she breathed, “go on!”
He turned his head aside.
“No, I can say no more! Not one word. There is danger——” He stopped. “Miss Vanley——” He started, and put his hand to his brow with a sudden gesture of despair and sorrow. “Ah, I forgot! Forgive me. Does he—your husband—know?”
Her face paled, and her lips twitched.
“No, he does not know. I—I have not seen him since the wedding.”
He was silent a moment; and she, glancing up at him, saw a strange look of trouble and anxiety in his face, and she knew that he was thinking of her.
“I—I have a message for him,” he said, slowly, as if he were guarding every word. “It—it is a matter of business, which I had intended telling him before they arrested me. Will you ask him if he will be so good as to come and see me? No! do not!” he said, suddenly; “I will write. If—if it be possible, do not let him know that you have been here. Tell me who knows it already.”
“There is Bessie—she came with me; and the coachman and the colonel,” she replied, listlessly and indifferently.
“Good, faithful Bessie,” he said, thoughtfully. “You—you will keep her near you. She loves you with all her heart and soul.”