"Oh, not what matters," she breathed. "Did she care for you very, very much?"
"She cared a good deal more than I deserved," he said gravely; "and more unspeakably than I desired."
"But she didn't find that out?"
"No, she didn't find it out. Think what finding out would have meant to her."
The girl was silent for a moment.
"Did you kiss her?" she asked, below her breath.
"I did many things I would have preferred not to," he said quietly; "but what they were you could not wish, I think, to learn from me."
"On account of what I know?" she asked.
"I don't know what you know," he replied; "but I think that no man who has shared, however unwillingly, a woman's secret, has any rights over it but those of burial."
She gave him her lips with a smile, and made no further reference to the subject before they parted. She was going into the country, and he was not to see her for ten days.