‘But it may be a great deal to me. It is not very pleasant for me to hear your name handled and defamed by the black brutes I look after,—to know they speak of you lightly, and say—’
‘What do they dare to say?’ she exclaimed, as she turned and faced him, with the infant on her breast.
‘That that infant is your own!’
There was the silence of a minute between them, and then she said, in a low voice,—
‘And what do you say?’
‘That I require to be satisfied who it belongs to, and that you must tell me.’
‘I cannot!’
There was such an amount of quiet despair in her voice as she pronounced the words, that De Courcelles felt at once that Maraquita’s secret was safe, and that she would not disclose it even to him. And with the conviction, came a glad, unworthy satisfaction that her guilt and his would be concealed, even at the expense of their most faithful friend.
‘You cannot?’ he repeated, in a voice of feigned astonishment. ‘But I say you must, or everything shall be over between us!’
‘Henri!’ she exclaimed earnestly, ‘think—think what you are doing. You cannot possibly suspect me! Why, I—I—love you!’ she ended falteringly, as if that confession must clear her at once, and for ever.