“Was there anything about me?” she asked.
“There were references to you,” he said. “Much of the writing was in the nature of a diary. It is hard to disentangle item from item.”
She knew he was evading a direct answer.
“Was there any mention of my father or mother?” she challenged him directly.
“No,” he said, and her grey eyes searched his face.
“You are not speaking the truth, Yeh Ling,” she said in a low voice. “You think if you speak—if you think I know, that I shall be hurt. Isn’t that true? And because you would not hurt me, you are lying?”
He showed no evidence of embarrassment at the accusation.
“Lady, how can I say what is in papers which I have not read, or if I have read I cannot understand? Or suppose in his writings one revelation is so mixed up with another that it is impossible to betray one without the other? I will not deceive you. Shi Soh wrote about you. He said that you were the only person in the world he trusted.”
She looked her amazement.
“I? But—”