“I am of no family or place in England,” he went on calmly. “I come of yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank. Our lines of life will not cross. It is well that it should be so. As to what happened—that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I was justified or no. But if thee has thought that I have repented doing what I did, let that pass for ever from your mind. I know that I should do the same, yes, even a hundred times. I did according to my nature. Thee must not now be punished cruelly for a thing thee did not do. Silence is the only way of safety or of justice. We must not speak of this again. We must each go our own way.”
Her eyes were moist. She reached out a hand to him timidly. “Oh, forgive me,” she added brokenly, “I am so vain, so selfish, and that makes one blind to the truth. It is all clearer now. You have shown me that I was right in my first impulse, and that is all I can say for myself. I shall pray all my life that it will do you no harm in the end.”
She remained silent, for a moment adjusting her veil, preparing to go. Presently she spoke again: “I shall always want to know about you—what is happening to you. How could it be otherwise?”
She was half realising one of the deepest things in existence, that the closest bond between two human beings is a bond of secrecy upon a thing which vitally, fatally concerns both or either. It is a power at once malevolent and beautiful. A secret like that of David and Hylda will do in a day what a score of years could not accomplish, will insinuate confidences which might never be given to the nearest or dearest. In neither was any feeling of the heart begotten by their experiences; and yet they had gone deeper in each other’s lives than any one either had known in a lifetime. They had struck a deeper note than love or friendship. They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for ever after. Each understood this in a different way.
Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table. It had raised in her mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety. He saw the glance, and said: “I was writing to one who has been as a sister to me. She was my mother’s sister though she is almost as young as I. Her name is Faith. There is nothing there of what concerns thee and me, though it would make no difference if she knew.” Suddenly a thought seemed to strike him. “The secret is of thee and me. There is safety. If it became another’s, there might be peril. The thing shall be between us only, for ever?”
“Do you think that I—”
“My instinct tells me a woman of sensitive mind might one day, out of an unmerciful honesty, tell her husband—”
“I am not married-”
“But one day—”
She interrupted him. “Sentimental egotism will not rule me. Tell me,” she added, “tell me one thing before I go. You said that your course was set. What is it?”