"Daisy," he said, after a pause, "there are things I must say to you, and I hope—with all my heart—you will find a way to answer them. In the first place, do you believe me, really, truly, your friend?"
She placed her hand in his for answer. The action meant more than any form of words.
"Then, tell me—tell me as freely as if I were your brother, your priest—why you stayed from home that night."
She withdrew the hand he held, to place it with the other over her eyes.
"It is impossible," she responded, with a gasp. "I told you that I never could explain, and I never can."
He looked sorely disappointed.
"I know no person on earth—not even my father," she proceeded, giving him back the clasp she had loosened, "that I would tell it to sooner than you. I have not given him the least hint. I know it leaves you to think a thousand things, and I can only throw myself on your mercy; I can only ask you to remember all you knew of me before that day, and decide whether a girl can change her whole mental and moral attitude in a moment."
He drew her arm caressingly through his, and breathed a sigh on her forehead.
"Not for one second have I doubted your truth!" he replied. "Believe that, Daisy, through everything. But I hoped for an explanation, for something that might assist me to punish the guilty ones, for such there must have been."
The face that she turned toward him was full of terror.