“Mr. Cole,” said she, “you must give me your sacred promise that so far as you are concerned, it shall never come out at all!”
“This monstrous conspiracy? This cold blooded massacre?”
And I crouched aghast.
“Yes; it could do no good; and, at any rate, unless you promise I remain where I am.”
“In their hands?”
“Decidedly—to warn them in time. Leave them I would, but betray them—never!”
What could I say? What choice had I in the face of an alternative so headstrong and so unreasonable? To rescue Eva from these miscreants I would have let every malefactor in the country go unscathed: yet the condition was a hard one; and, as I hesitated, my love went on her knees to me, there in the moonlight among the rhododendrons.
“Promise—promise—or you will kill me!” she gasped. “They may deserve it richly, but I would rather be torn in little pieces than—than have them—hanged!”
“It is too good for most of them.”
“Promise!”