“Isn’t it? It’s asking very little, I think.” His voice vibrated with a sudden note of passion. “You’re going to marry Coventry. Very well. What am I asking? One little evening out of all your life—to call mine, to remember you by.”
Ann was silent. Her thoughts were in a whirl. Here was a way by which she could save Tony—put things right for him. But at what a price! She shrank from the risk involved. If Eliot were to hear of it, to learn that she had had supper with Brett on board his yacht—alone, what would he think—suspect? His faith in her had not stood testing once before, when a pure accident had forced her into a false position. Would it stand now, if she did this thing? If, being Eliot’s promised wife, she deliberately spent the evening on board the Sphinx with Brett? She knew it would not. The faith of very few men would remain proof against circumstances such as those—least of all, Eliot’s. The grey, relentless shadow had suddenly swung forward, completely enveloping her path.
“No, Brett,” she said at last. “I can’t—do—that.”
“Then, as I said, Tony must go under”—coolly.
She clenched her hands in an agony of indecision. Tony, whom Virginia had bequeathed to her—whom she had promised to shield from harm “if it was in any way possible”! She had thought that already she had paid to the utmost in the fulfilment of her trust by stooping to beg mercy at Brett’s hands. But it seemed that the keeping of her promise to the dead woman was to cost still more—demanded the sacrifice of her own happiness, the faith and trust of the man who loved her. Piteously Ann reflected that could Virginia have known how matters stood she would never have exacted the fulfilment of any promise at such a fearful price. But Virginia could not know. And the promise held.
“Well?” queried Brett. He had been watching Ann’s face closely while she fought her battle. “Well, will you come?”
She drew a long, shuddering breath.
“Yes. I’ll come,” she said.
Her voice sounded curiously weak and strange to her own ears—like that of some one else speaking. She wondered if she had really spoken audibly, and, in a sudden terror lest he shouldn’t have heard her, she repeated the words with jerky emphasis.
“Yes. I’ll come.”