Guessing from her earnestness what was coming, I hesitated before I replied.
"Would it not be better to leave it to my honour to do or not to do so after you have told me what it is?" I asked.
"No; you must give me your promise first," she replied. "Believe me, I mean it when I say that your compliance with my request will make me a happier woman than I have been for some time past." Here she blushed a rosy red, as though she thought she had said too much. "But it is possible my happiness does not weigh with you."
"It weighs very heavily," I replied. "It is on that account I can not give my promise blindfold."
On hearing this she seemed somewhat disappointed.
"I did not think you would refuse me," she said, "since what I am going to ask of you is only for your own good. Mr. Forrester, you have seen something on board the yacht of the risk you run while you are associated with Pharos. You are now on land again and your own master. If you desire to please me, you will take the opportunity and go away. Every hour that you remain here only adds to your danger. The crisis will soon come, and then you will find that you have neglected my warning too long."
"Forgive me," I answered, this time as seriously as even she could desire, "if I say that I have not neglected your warning. Since you have so often pointed it out to me, and judging from what I have already seen of the character of the old gentleman in question, I can quite believe that he is capable of any villainy; but, if you will pardon my reminding you of it, I think you have heard my decision before. I am willing, nay, even eager to go away, provided you will do the same. If, however, you decline, then I remain. More than that I will not, and less than that I can not, promise."
"What you ask is impossible; it is out of the question," she continued. "As I have told you so often before, Mr. Forrester, I am bound to him forever and by chains that no human power can break. What is more, even if I were to do as you wish, it would be useless. The instant he wanted me, if he were thousands of miles away and only breathed my name, I should forget your kindness, my freedom, his old cruelty—everything, in fact—and go back to him. Have you not seen enough of us to know that where he is concerned, I have no will of my own? Besides—but there, I can not tell you any more! Let it suffice that I can not do as you ask."
Remembering the interview I had overheard that night on board the yacht, I did not know what to say. That Pharos had her under his influence I had, as she had said, seen enough to be convinced. And yet, regarded in the light of our sober, every-day life, how impossible it all seemed! I looked at the beautiful, fashionably-dressed woman seated by my side, playing with the silver handle of her Parisian parasol, and wondered if I could be dreaming, and whether I should presently waken to find myself in bed in my comfortable rooms in London once more, and my servant entering with my shaving-water.
"I think you are very cruel!" she said, when I returned no answer. "Surely you must be aware how much it adds to my unhappiness to know that another is being drawn into his toils, and yet you refuse to do the one and only thing which can make my mind easier."