For a moment I was in doubt as to whether to tell her the truth or not. Then we sat down on the grass and I related the whole adventure to her from the beginning to the end, keeping back only the names of the persons who had been involved. Of the fact that her father had been privy to it, I gave not the least hint.
How truly Shakespeare knew the innermost heart of woman when he wrote: “She thank’d me, And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her.” As I told my tale her eyes opened wider and wider. I seemed to stand in her simple imagination like one of the heroes of old time. She did not realize that I had done nothing to help myself, that my escape had all been arranged for me. Her cheeks glowed with interest and sympathy. I think it must have been at that moment that the feeling for me was born which led her to so many kind acts in the next few days.
“Oh,” she cried with a little gasp of breath. “I am so glad. You are so brave. Let me tell my father all about it.”
“Mistress Van Volkenberg,” I replied, “will you grant me a favor?”
“Anything, Monsieur St. Vincent.”
“It is this. Do not tell your father. Do not tell anyone. Your father is often ill, and if I told him all it might excite him. Will you leave this to me?”
“Yes, if you wish it.”
“I do. You are very kind. Where were you going when I alarmed you so?”
“I was going to the woods with a basket of flowers. Will you carry them for me?”
We picked up the basket she had dropped and rearranged the flowers that had fallen upon the ground. Then we set out, taking a footpath through the woods, which brought us quickly to a little summer house perched high upon a jutting cliff.