"What have you heard?" he asked, abruptly.
"Tell me the truth," she said, "and then I will tell you whether it is what I have heard."
He looked at her doubtfully.
"It is for you to decide," he said at last, in a very low voice. "If what you have learned about a tie, a responsibility, which I undertook more than four years ago, is sufficient to part us, I must bow to your decision. I cannot undo what I have done."
"You are not free!" she whispered, as he turned away.
"I am free to love you!" he cried, suddenly clasping her hands in his and drawing them up against his heart again. "Lina, we can't talk here, and I can see that we have both much to say. On Saturday your time is your own, is it not? Well, Saturday next I will come to you so soon as you are free. What time shall it be? Two o'clock or half-past two? Fix the time, or I shall burst in before you have finished luncheon!"
"You cannot come to the house for me," exclaimed Laline—"it is out of the question! What do you imagine you could say to Mrs. Vandeleur and her niece to explain such conduct—'If you please, ma'am, I understand it's your secretary's afternoon out, and I've come to take her out walking?' Do you really suppose that earning one's living quite destroys one's sense of what is due to the position of a lady?"
"Don't be angry, Lina," he was beginning, when she cut him short again.
"I will not permit you to call me by my Christian name, Mr. Armstrong!"