The girl stood there, saying nothing. Had she rang the bell and ordered the footman to put him out of the house, Steel would have had no cause for complaint. But she did nothing of the kind. She stood there torn by conflicting emotions.
"I can give you no information," she said, presently. "But I am as positive one way as you are another that you have never been in this house before. I may surmise things, but as I hope to be judged fairly I can give you no information. I am only a poor, unhappy girl, who is doing what she deems to be the best for all parties concerned. And I can tell you nothing, nothing. Oh, won't you believe that I would do anything to serve you if I were only free?"
She held out her hand with an imploring gesture, the red lips were quivering, and her eyes were full of tears. David's warm heart went out to her; he forgot all his own troubles and dangers in his sympathy for the lovely creature in distress.
"Pray say no more about it," he cried. He caught the outstretched hand in his and carried it to his lips. "I don't wish to hurry you; in fact, haste is dangerous. And there is ample time. Nor am I going to press you. Still, before long you may find some way to give me a clue without sacrificing a jot of your fine loyalty to—well, others. I would not distress you for the world, Miss Gates. Don't you think that this has been the most extraordinary interview?"
The tears trembled like diamonds on the girl's long lashes and a smile flashed over her face. The sudden transformation was wonderfully fascinating.
"What you might call an impossible interview," she laughed. "And all the more impossible because it was quite impossible that you could ever have been here before."
"When I was in this room two nights ago," David protested, "I saw—-"
"Did you see me, for instance? If not, you couldn't have been here."
A small, misshapen figure, with the face of a Byron—Apollo on the bust of a Satyr—came in from behind the folding doors at the back of the dining-room carrying some letters in his hand. The stranger's dark, piercing eyes were fixed inquiringly upon Steel.
"Bell," the latter cried; "Hatherly Bell! you have been listening!"