She turned imploring eyes on him, and unconsciously clasped her hands. “I’m sure you’re generous and steadfast,” she said quickly. “I can trust you, can’t I, not to give me away? The gossip, the curious stares—it would be more than I could bear! Promise me, whatever you may think of it all, to respect my secret.”
“I promise,” he said a little stiffly. It hurt him that he was required to protest his good faith. “The first thing we learn in the force is to keep our mouths shut.”
“Ah, now you’re offended with me because I made you promise!”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over now. What is your reason for wanting to go out to Swan River?”
She answered low: “I am Ernest Imbrie’s wife.”
“Oh!” said Stonor in a flat tone. A sick disappointment filled him—yet in the back of his mind he had expected something of the kind. An inner voice whispered to him: “Not for you! It was too much to hope for!”
Presently she went on: “I injured him cruelly. That’s why he buried himself so far away.”
Stonor turned horror-stricken eyes on her.
“Oh, not that,” she said proudly and indifferently. “The injury I did him was to his spirit; that is worse.” Stonor turned hot for his momentary suspicion.
“I can repair it by going to him,” she went on. “I must go to him. I can never know peace until I have tried to make up to him a little of what I have made him suffer.”