"Is it a promise, Chris?" he asked at length.
She threw him a nervous glance and nodded.
He laid his hand upon hers and held it still. "Chris, have you any debts now?"
She was silent.
"My dear," he said, "don't be afraid of me!"
There was that in his voice that moved her to the depths; she could not have said why. Impulsively, almost passionately, she went into his arms.
"I won't!" she said. "I won't! Trevor, I—I've been a little beast! That money you gave me on my birthday I didn't do—what you meant me to do with it. I just—spent it. I don't know how. And then—when you asked about it that night—I didn't dare to tell you, and I haven't dared since. I just let you think it was all right—when it wasn't. Oh, Trevor, don't be angry—don't be angry!"
"I am not angry," he said.
"Not really? But how you must despise me! It's just the way of the
Wyndhams. We all do it. Trevor, why did you make me tell you?"
"My dear child," he said, "you must tell me these things. It is your only possibility of happiness, and mine also. Chris, never keep anything from me, for Heaven's sake! Don't you know that I trust you?"