He sat upright.
“Helène,” he said, “you are making me very happy, but there is one thing which I must ask you, and which you must forgive me for asking. This entanglement of which you speak has nothing to do with Mr. Sabin?”
“Nothing whatever,” she answered promptly. “How I should like to tell you everything! But I have made a solemn promise, and I must keep it. My lips are sealed. But one thing I should like you to understand, in case you have ever had any doubt about it. Mr. Sabin is really my uncle, my mother’s brother. He is engaged in a great enterprise in which I am a necessary figure. He has suddenly become very much afraid of you.”
“Afraid of me!” Wolfenden repeated.
She nodded.
“I ought to tell you, perhaps, that my marriage with some one else is necessary to insure the full success of his plans. So you see he has set himself to keep us apart.”
“The more you tell me, the more bewildered I get,” Wolfenden declared. “What made him attack me just now without any warning? Surely he did not wish to kill me?”
Her hand within his seemed to grow colder.
“You were imprudent,” she said.
“Imprudent! In what way?”