She went down the narrow staircase, and out into the colonnade with Mr. Monckton. It was ten o’clock; the shops were closed, and the public-house was quiet. Under the August moonlight the shabby tenements looked less commonplace, the dilapidated wooden colonnade was almost picturesque. Miss Vane stood with her face turned frankly towards her lover, her figure resting slightly against one of the slender pillars before the shoemaker’s emporium.
“What is it that you want to tell me, Eleanor dearest?” Mr. Monckton asked, as she paused, looking half-doubtfully in his face, uncertain what she should say to him.
“I want to tell you that I have done very wrong—I have deceived you.”
“Deceived me! Eleanor! Eleanor!”
She saw the lawyer’s face turn pale under the moonlight. That word deception had such a terrible meaning to him.
“Yes, I have deceived you. I have kept a secret from you, and I can only tell it to you upon one condition.”
“Upon what condition?”
“That you do not tell it to Mr. de Crespigny, or to Mrs. Darrell, until you have my permission to do so.”
Gilbert Monckton smiled. His sudden fears fled away before the truthfulness of the girl’s voice, the earnestness of her manner.
“Not tell Mr. de Crespigny, or Mrs. Darrell?” he said; “of course not, my dear. Why should I tell them anything which concerns you, and that you wish me to keep from them?”