He stood humbly before her with his head bowed. When he spoke his voice was absolutely sincere.
"I can't tell you, Jane."
This magnified her fears, for she thought he was trying mercifully to spare her.
"You must tell me," she urged, betraying her terror by grasping his arm. In his own preoccupation he did not notice this. "You must tell me," she was pleading. "Oh, Brent, if we are ever to be friends, here, tell me! There's a vital reason why I must know at once!"
"But, Jane, I can't," he earnestly replied to her. "It was someone to see me!"
"You are cruel to try to spare me this way," she gasped, and the tears in her voice turned him to a being of great tenderness. "Can't you see I'm desperate?—that your evasions are torturing me? Who was that man?"
"Man?" he stared at her. "It wasn't a man!"
"Oh," she said, loosing his arm and stepping back with a half earnest, half hysterical little laugh. "Oh," she repeated, "I—you must forgive me! I thought it was someone—I thought it might be someone who touched me very closely, Brent!"
He stood looking down at her. How could he know she had been fearful of Potter?
"It seems," he slowly mused, "that we've nearly stumbled on each other's secrets. I didn't suspect you were waiting for anyone, or I shouldn't have stayed."