“I must stop you, Fred,” cried Laura, passionately. “We cannot go on like this.”
“Why?” he said calmly. “Because we are brother and sister. We have always been as one together. You have had no secrets from me. I have had none from you. I have always been so proud of my brother’s love for me, but now all at once everything comes to an end. You withhold your confidence.”
“No; my confidence, perhaps, for the time being,” he said gravely; “not my love from you. God forbid.”
“But you do, Fred.”
“No; it is more the other way on,” he replied. “You have withheld your love from me, and checked any disposition I might have felt to confide in you.”
“Fred!”
“Don’t deny it,” he said quietly. “Since I was called away so strangely, and kept away against my will—”
“Against your will!” cried Laura, scornfully.
“Hah!” he cried, “it is of no use to argue with you, my child. Poor old aunt has so thoroughly imbued you with her doctrines of suspicion that everything I say will be in vain.”
“Imbued me with her suspicions!” cried Laura, angrily. “That is it; because I am quite a girl still you treat me as if I were a child. Do you—oh, I cannot say it!—yes, I will; I am your sister, and it is my duty to try and save you from something which will cause you regret to the end of your days. Do you dare to deny that you have got into some wretched entanglement—something which has suddenly turned you half mad?”