“Don’t go,” he said. “Your reputation is quite safe, and the night is still young. Without wishing to seem idly curious, I should like to hear why you are journeying unprotected, through France. Do you think I am entitled to an explanation?”
She remained standing beside her chair. “Yes, sir, I do think it,” she answered quietly. “For my situation must seem indeed strange. But unhappily I am not able to give you the true explanation, and since I do not wish to repay your kindness with lies it is better that I should offer none. May I wish you good-night, sir?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Sit down, my child.”
She looked at him for a moment, and after some slight hesitation, obeyed, lightly clasping her hands in the lap of her grey gown.
The stranger regarded her over the brim of his wineglass. “May I ask why you find yourself unable to proffer the true explanation?”
She seemed to ponder her reply for a while. “There are several reasons, sir. The truth is so very nearly as strange as Mr. Walpole’s famous romance that perhaps I fear to be disbelieved.”
He tilted his glass, observing the reflection of the candlelight in the deep red wine. “But did you not say, Miss Challoner, that you would not lie to me?” he inquired softly.
Her eyes narrowed. “You are very acute, sir.”
“I have that reputation,” he agreed.
His words touched a chord of memory in her brain, but she was unable to catch the fleeting remembrance. She said: “You are quite right, sir: that is not my reason. The truth is there is someone else involved in my story.”