"I cannot tell you anything about those events, or my connection with them," she went on, "but I want you to believe that I have no longer any association with those who planned them. I am not here to spy upon you. I am not in communication with any one to whom your actions are of any interest. Will you believe this?"
I hesitated for a moment. Her eyes held mine. It was not possible for me to disbelieve her.
"I am glad to hear this," I said seriously.
"You do not doubt me?"
"I cannot," I answered.
She drew a little sigh of relief.
"And now," she said, "about yourself. Be as frank with me as I have been with you. Are you really the legatee of Guest's secret?"
"You know that he told me certain things—before he died," I answered slowly.
"Yes! But what are you going to do with the knowledge? Are you going to be wise and let fate take its course, or are you going to meddle in affairs which you know nothing about? Don't do it, Mr. Courage!" she exclaimed, with a sudden catch in her voice. "Leslie Guest was a diplomatist and a schemer all his life, and you know the penalty he paid. You have not the training or the disposition for this sort of thing. You would be foredoomed to failure. Don't do it!"
I turned and looked at her. She was so much in earnest that her whole expression was transformed. The mysterious smile which was so often upon her lips, half supercilious, half mocking, was gone, and with it something of that elusiveness which had so often puzzled me! Her eyes met mine frankly and pleadingly, her fingers were upon my arm, and she was swaying a little towards me with the motion of the boat, so that I was tempted almost beyond measure to take her into my arms, and, with my lips upon hers, promise whatever she would have had me promise. It was only a moment of madness. The memory of other things came back to me.