“Never mind what,” interrupted the young man eagerly, with probably a prudent fear of what the communication might be. “You are here; that is enough. There will be time to tell me anything and everything when we are afloat. Come, here is the boat.”
He drew her toward him, and so compelling was his grasp that Aimée felt that in another moment she might be in the boat and en route for the West Indies. This gave her the courage of desperation. She made a determined effort to release herself as she said more clearly:
“You are mistaken. I am not the person you think. I have only come to tell you that she can not come.”
“Not the person I think!” repeated the young man. He released her hands and fell back a step in his amazement. The violent revulsion of feeling which he underwent was evident in his voice, and the sharpness of his disappointment so pierced Aimée’s heart that she forgave the sharpness of his tone, as he went on:
“Then who are you—and why are you here?”
“I am Fanny’s cousin,” the girl replied, then suddenly checked herself. “But you—who are you?” she said. “I was told to ask your name before I gave any message.”
“There is no doubt who I am,” he replied, sternly. “My name is Lennox Kyrle. What message have you for me?”
“Only that—that Fanny can not come,” answered Aimée, tremulously. She paused and clasped her hands nervously together, trying to recall all that Fanny had impressed on her mind to be delivered, but only the principal points remained, and before she could gather them into shape, as it were, Mr. Kyrle justified his character for impetuosity by breaking in:
“That she can not come,” he repeated. “Is that all, after having brought me here? Why can not she come?”
The indignant emphasis of the last question was, under the circumstances, natural enough; and, confronted with it, Aimée felt in every fiber the shame of the answer which she was bound to give: