"Horrified?"
"N—no, she wasn't so interested as all that. But I don't understand!" he exclaimed again; "you said just now that you had met her?"
"She doesn't know I've met her—-she doesn't know it was I. I took another name; I called myself 'Tremlett.'"
"You called, yourself 'Tremlett'? Why? What the devil is all this about—what did you take another name for?"
"I didn't want her to discover I—I wasn't a white man; not then, not so soon. I was afraid."
"'Afraid'?"
"Afraid she might stop writing to me if she knew."
"So help me God! it sounds as if you're telling me you are in love with her?"
"Yes," said David quietly, "that is what I have to tell you. I am in love with her."
They stood looking into each other's eyes for several seconds, neither of them moving.