"Whatever secrets those letters contain shall be respected by me."
"Not so," said Lorelie sadly. "Mr. Breakspear, Idris Marville, or whatever name you will, I believe you to be a man of honour——"
"Then why not trust me?"
"Because you would consider yourself justified in breaking your pledge of secrecy. I dare not trust you. No oath could be binding in such a case as this. You would proclaim aloud to the world the contents of those letters."
In spite of her words, Idris, with justifiable curiosity, continued to press her with questions relative to his father's movements after the flight from Quilaix, but to all his interrogations Lorelie remained coldly mute.
"And you will tell me nothing more than you have told?" he said at last.
His sorrowful tone seemed to touch her to the quick. The icy expression faded from her face and gave way to one of warmth and tenderness. Her eyes became luminous with tears, but, as if desirous of resisting his pleading, she averted her head and hid her face in her hands.
"Do not question me further," she entreated. "Not to answer is painful, but to answer would be more painful still. O, why did you reveal your true name? I shall never be happy again. If I had but known you twelve months ago, all would have been well, but now—now it is too late. In revealing what you wish, nay, what you ought to know, I should be injuring the interests of, not myself, for that would matter little, but the interests of others. You do not understand—how should you?—but some day you will learn my meaning, and then—and then——" her voice faltered, "how the world will despise me! you more than all others. Mr. Breakspear, if you knew my real character you would have left me lying on the sand to be overwhelmed by the tide. I would that you had!"
Though Idris knew not what meaning to affix to this speech, it did not abate in one degree his love for her: nay, her very air of humiliation, plaintive and touching, served only to enhance her attractiveness. When he recalled the heroic look upon her face in the presence of death, and the clasping of her hands in prayer upon her deliverance, he could not bring himself to think ill of her. Her mysterious self-accusations must be the result of some delusion: or, if something did attach to her that the world would call guilt, he did not doubt that justification would be found for it.
"Mademoiselle," he replied, with a grave smile, "you seem to regard me in the light of an enemy, when my chief desire is to occupy a high place in your friendship." He would have said "heart" had he dared. "Since the subject of the yacht is painful to you, I will not refer to it again in your presence."