Anderson, who had also turned pale, stared at him a second, and his look was a question.
“There is absolutely nothing else that I can do,” replied Carroll, simply; “it is my only course.”
Anderson held out his hand. “I shall be proud to have your daughter for my wife,” he said.
“Remember she is not to know,” Carroll said.
“Do you think the ignorance preferable to the anxiety?”
“I don't know. I cannot have her know. None of them shall know. I have trusted you,” Carroll said, with a sort of agonized appeal. “I had, as a matter of honor, to tell you, but no one else,” he continued, still in his voice which seemed strained to lowness. “I had to trust you.”
“You will never find your trust misplaced,” replied Anderson, gravely, “but it will be hard for her.”
“You can comfort her,” Carroll said, with a painful smile, in which was a slight jealousy, the feeling of a man outside all his loves of life.
“When?” asked Anderson, in a whisper.
“Monday.”