She paused timorously, and nervously stripped the glove she had unconsciously removed from her hand. By way of encouragement, Boyd Westover said:
"Go on. I shall be glad to hear anything you have to tell me."
She remained meditatively silent for half a minute more. Then she asked, with great, open, honest eyes looking into his:
"Mr. Westover, can you, do you believe a woman—in the same way that you take a man's word, I mean? If Mr. Towns, or Dr. Farnsworth, should solemnly assure you of the perfect truth of anything they might have to say to you, you would believe him as implicitly as if his statement were a fact within your personal knowledge. Can you believe a woman's solemn assurance in the same way and to the same extent?"
"When you are the woman making the statement, yes!" he answered gallantly, but with an assurance of sincerity in his voice, and with a still more emphatic assurance of sincerity in the eyes that looked straight into hers. "I shall believe anything you tell me as firmly as I believe in my own existence, or in the stability of the rocks under our feet."
"I thank you sincerely," she said, with that Bostonian fulness of expression that had peculiarly charmed all the Virginians who had enjoyed a meeting with her. "Now I'll make the statement that you are to believe as absolutely true."
She paused, as if framing her utterance carefully. After a moment she said:
"In what I am going to say to you, and in seeking this opportunity to say it, I do not represent anybody but myself. Especially I do not represent Margaret Conway."
He started a little at the name, and she observed the fact, but she went on, not heeding it.
"Indeed in telling you what I am going to tell you, I am violating Margaret's earnest and express commands. Perhaps I am even violating a confidence of friendship. I don't know, and it makes no difference. It is my duty to tell you, and I'll do that duty at all hazards. It involves the life-long happiness or unhappiness of two persons whom I hold in affectionate regard."