“It was not my secret. It was his. It was his till such time as he could speak of it to my father, and this he told me had not yet come.”
“Why not?”
“I never asked him that. I do not think, Tom,” said she, with much emotion, “it was such a question as you would have had me ask.”
“Do you love—Come, darling Lucy, don't be angry with me. I never meant to wound your feelings. Don't sob that way, my dear, dear Lucy. You know what a rough coarse fellow I am; but I'd rather die than offend you. Why did you not tell me of all this? I never liked any one so well as Trafford, and why leave me to the chance of misconstruing him? Would n't it have been the best way to have trusted me as you always have?”
“I don't see what there was to have confided to you. Mr. Trafford might, if he wished. I mean, that if there was a secret at all. I don't know what I mean,” cried she, covering her face with her handkerchief, while a convulsive motion of her shoulders showed how she was moved.
“I am as glad as if I had got a thousand pounds, to know you have been so right, so thoroughly right, in all this, Lucy; and I am glad, too, that Trafford has done nothing to make me think less well of him. Let's be friends; give me your hand, like a dear, good girl, and forgive me if I have said what pained you.”
“I am not angry, Tom,” said she, giving her hand, but with her head still averted.
“God knows it's not the time for us to fall out,” said he, with a shaking voice. “Going to separate as we are, and when to be together again not so easy to imagine.”
“You are surely going out with papa?” asked she, eagerly.
“No; they say not.”