'You will pardon me for saying this, when I know that you are the friend of Alison Cheyne, whom I love with my whole life, and shall follow over the world if I can trace her!' said Goring, whose voice trembled with emotion that sprang from love and anger.
'I do love sweet Alison very dearly.'
'And poor Dalton,' said Goring, anxious to plead his friend's cause; 'can you not love him as he deserves to be?'
'I have not said so,' replied Mrs. Trelawney, now laughing excessively, and added, 'what an odd question for a gentleman visitor!'
'Do pardon me; but will you give him time to hope—through me?'
'Please not to suggest this, Captain Goring.'
'Why?
'There is—I know—a secret in his life—he knows it too—a secret that in some measure fetters alike his words and his actions.'
'Good heavens! and this secret?'
'Is mine also—I have the key to it.'