"It is the one thing that I must know," he said sternly.
She was white to the lips.
"I can't answer you," she said.
"You must answer me!" He turned her quivering face up to his own. "Do you hear me, Hope?" he said. "I insist upon your answering me."
He still spoke quietly, but she was suddenly aware that he was putting forth his whole strength. It came upon her like a physical, crushing weight. It overwhelmed her. She hid her face with an anguished cry. He had conquered her.
In another moment she would have yielded. Her opposition was dead. But abruptly, unexpectedly, there came an interruption. Ronnie, very pale, and looking desperate, came between them.
"Look here, sir," he said, "you—you are going too far. I can't have my sister coerced in this fashion. If she prefers to keep this matter to herself, she must do so. You can't force her to speak."
Baring released Hope and turned upon him almost violently, but, seeing the unusual, if precarious, air of resolution with which Ronnie confronted him, he checked himself. He walked to the end of the room and back before he spoke. His features were set like a mask when he returned.
"You may be right," he said, "though I think it would have been better for everyone if you had not interfered. Hope, I am going. If you cannot bring yourself to tell me the whole truth without reservation, there can be nothing further between us. I fear that, after all, I spoke too soon. I can enter upon no compact that is not based upon absolute confidence."
He spoke coldly, decidedly, without a trace of feeling; and, having spoken, he went deliberately to the window. There he stood for a few seconds with his back turned upon the room; then, as the silence remained unbroken, he quietly lifted the catch and let himself out.