“But I am not English!”
The man started back. “Not English!” he babbled. “Not English! Are you not the niece of Lord Maxwell?”
“No! I am—I am—Count! I have deceived you. I have let you think me English. I knew you had a secret and I wanted to wheedle it out of you. I am ashamed—ashamed. I don’t know why! I never was ashamed of my work before. But I am now. You cannot say anything too bad for me. I deserve it all.” The girl bowed her head and her shoulders shook.
The man caught her wrist, and spun her around to face him. “You are a government spy?” he demanded desperately.
The girl shook her head. “No! I am a newspaper woman.”
The man’s bowed shoulders suddenly straightened. Hope sprang up in him. “A newspaper woman! Then—then—Come! That is not so bad. You can resign and marry me.”
But Lillian shook her head. “No! No! I cannot,” she murmured. “I am sorry, but—I cannot.”
Ouro Preto stared at her. Then: “Well? Let that go for the moment. Later—But now—See? I am rich! very rich! I will pay you two—three years’ salary and you will forget all that I have said. It is a bargain? No?”
But the girl bowed her head miserably. “Oh!” she cried. “I have fallen low—low! I said you could say nothing too hard for me to hear, but I never dreamed that you—you of all men—would offer me money! that you should think me for sale. I am shamed. I have had to earn my own living and I have done it. I have gone on from step to step, not realizing. But, believe me, I never did anything quite so indefensible as this before. I never tricked a man’s love to get his secret before.”
The man was listening intently. But his thoughts were clearly of himself, and not of her. He seemed to have forgotten the words of love that he had breathed only a few moments before. When he spoke his tones still trembled, but with an emotion very different from love.