Salis laughed and went on his mission, but in half-an-hour he was back, and Mary looked up at him wonderingly.
“Back so soon?” she said; and then with her heart beating frightfully, and a look of agony in her face that came as a revelation to Salis, she stretched out her hands to her brother, her fingers twitching spasmodically, as she uttered a wild cry, which brought him to her feet.
“Mary! My dear child! Be calm!” he panted, for he was evidently out of breath.
“Speak!” she cried. “Have pity on my helplessness. I am chained here by my affliction, and depend on you alone. Don’t torture me—don’t keep me in suspense. Horace North?”
“Yes; only be calm, dear.”
“You are temporising,” cried the poor girl wildly, as she clung to his hands and began to kiss them passionately. “Hartley—Hartley, for pity’s sake, speak!”
“If you will only be calm,” he cried angrily. “This is hysterical madness. You are hindering me when I come back to you for help and advice.”
Mary uttered a piteous moan, and set her teeth, as she clung still to her brother’s hands.
“Tell me the worst,” she implored. “I can bear that more easily than this suspense.”
Salis gazed at his sister more wildly, as he, for the first time, read, in her anguished looks and broken words, the secret which she had kept so well.