"How strangely you harp on that string! What do you mean? There is something behind all this; I see it in your face. You frighten me!"
"Margie, all people are blind sometimes, but more especially women, when they love. Would it be a mercy to open the eyes of one who, in happy ignorance, was walking over a precipice which the flowers hid from her view?"
Margie shuddered, and the beautiful color fled from her cheek.
"I do not comprehend you. Why do you keep me in suspense?"
"Because I dread to break the charm. You will hate me for it always, Margie. We never love those who tell us disagreeable truths, even though it be for our good."
"I do not know what you would tell me, Alexandrine, but I do not think I shall hate you for it."
"Not if I tell you evil of Archer Trevlyn?"
"I will not listen to it!" she cried, indignantly.
"I expected as much. Well, Margie, you shall not. I will hold my peace; but if ever, in the years to come, the terrible secret should be revealed to you—the secret which would then destroy your happiness for all time—remember that I would have saved you, and you refused to listen."
She drew her shawl around her shoulders, and rose to go.