"I made up my mind last night to tell you everything."
"What if I know everything already?"
Gertrude withdrew from my arms and looked at me in a frightened way. "What do you know? What have you learned?"
"Dear," I took her hand and led her to a chair near the fire, "sit down, for I have much to tell you. I have been to London in answer to a telegram from your father."
She rose from the seat in which I had placed her. "Oh," she exclaimed in a fright, "has he returned to England? How foolish, when----" She stopped.
"When what, Gertrude?" I asked, looking at her keenly.
"If you know all, you must know why I wish my father to remain absent from England," she replied, sinking to the chair with a white face.
"Never mind what I know, tell me."
"My father," she began, and then her voice died away in her throat and she cast a frightened look at the door.
I knelt at her feet and took her cold hands within my own. "We are quite safe, dearest. Tell me, tell me, trust me fully." I knew pretty well what she was about to say, but wished her to voluntarily give me her full confidence.