"There is something Gerald is afraid to confess to me?"
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"It must be something terrible if he dares not tell me," exclaimed the girl, paling visibly.
"I meant to have used more precautions, and to have approached the subject in a more roundabout way, mademoiselle," replied Olivier, who was in torture, "but I see that such a course on my part would only serve to prolong your anxiety—"
"My God! What am I about to hear?" murmured the young girl, trembling violently in every limb.
"Truth is better than falsehood, Mlle. Herminie."
"Falsehood?"
"In a word, Gerald can no longer endure the false position in which a peculiar combination of circumstances, and his desire to see you, have placed him. His courage has failed him. He has resolved that he will deceive you no longer, and, whatever may come of it, trusting to your generosity, he sends me, I repeat, to tell you what he is afraid to confess himself,—for he knows how bitterly you abhor deceit, and unfortunately Gerald has deceived you."
"Deceived me?"
"Yes, Gerald is not what he seems to be. You have known him under an assumed name. He has pretended to be what he is not."