"I mayn't," she whispered, withdrawing her hand. "Neither may you."
"Why mayn't we?"
"Because you would bitterly regret it afterward when you had to render account to him, if you had abused your trust."
"Him! Whom do you mean?"
"Whom?" she echoed. "Why, whom else could I mean?... Haven't you said a hundred times that you are only his deputy, that you----"
A laugh interrupted her, a hoarse guilty laugh. He had clasped his hands round his knees, and laughed and breathed deeply and laughed again, like someone relieved from an intolerable burden.
A horrible dread gradually became a certainty within her.
"It was all untrue?" she faltered, staring at him.
"All! It was all nonsense from beginning to end, a tissue of humbug," he cried. "He wrote to me once, only once, before he left Germany. 'Take up with her; it would be a pity if she went to the dogs.' Nothing more, not another word.... There, now you know.... I've got it off my mind. It's been a jolly heavy load, I can tell you.... But what was I to do? Having begun, I had to go on."
He flung up the window and leaned out, panting hard.