She gave a quick indrawn sigh. "Oh, once was enough for me!"
"You mean—that you don't trust him?" I exclaimed in surprise.
"I mean I'm not sure that I do." She was speaking slowly now, choosing her words with an effort. "That's quite as bad, isn't it? For I don't know what to do about him. I am afraid that I may make things worse, perhaps."
"You're sure that you can't tell me?"
"Oh, I daren't! If I were only sure, I might, but even then it would be hard." Her voice was plaintive, and yet her accent was decisive.
There was a pause in which I thought of many things. As I waited, uncertain, my eyes stayed on the fine, erect, colored girl before me, so passionately loyal to her mistress, so delicately sensitive to the anomalous part she was playing. Though her resolution had in no way broken down, I could see how she was wrought upon, how difficult a position was hers in that strange house.
"Well," I said finally, "there's of course nothing for me to do, then, but to leave. Miss Fielding has told me explicitly that your judgment can be depended upon. I have no right here, of course; I'm an interloper——"
She put a dark, well-shaped hand on my arm, in timid reproach.
"Yet, I hope you can trust me," I added, not hesitating to clasp that hand in friendship and confidence.
She took it away quickly, but looked at me with her soul in her dark eyes. "Oh, I'm sure of you!" she said simply.