He looked at her now, and her eyes fell before his searching gaze, while her heart beat so fast that he could hear and count the throbs as her bosom rose and fell.
“No, Jack; I have not. I tried at first,—I meant to,—I really did; but I could not say the words, they choked me so. I couldn’t tell him, Jack!” and her voice was very mournful in its tone. “Think, if it were yourself, and you felt sure that to tell would be to lose Maude’s love, would you do it?—could you?”
She had made her strongest argument, and Jack hesitated ere he replied:
“It would be hard; but better so, it seems to me, than to live with a lie on my conscience, and a constant, haunting fear lest she should find it out.”
“But he can’t, Jack,—he never can,—unless you tell him, or Maude. How much does she know? Oh, Jack, have you broken your oath, sworn so solemnly to me.”
There was a flash in her black eyes as they fastened themselves upon Jack, who replied to her, truthfully:
“Maude knows nothing, except that there is something you would hide from Roy, and from the world. I hinted so much to her, as a weapon of defence for Edna. Whether she or any one else ever knows more from me, depends upon yourself, and your treatment of Edna.”
“I knew you would not betray me, Jack,” Georgie rejoined, a heavy weight lifted from her mind. “I shall not harm Mrs. Charlie Churchill,—I shall try to like her, for your sake and Maude’s. And, now, why need I tell Roy, when he never can, by any possibility, find it out, and to tell him would only distress him, and ruin me?”
“Perhaps not. If he loves you truly, as I love Maude, he can forgive a great deal. I should try it and see,—I should go to him clean and open-hearted, or not at all,” Jack said; but Georgie shook her head.
Confessing her fault would involve too much, for more people than Roy would have to know, if full confession was made; Aunt Burton, who thought her so perfect, and her Uncle Burton, too, and, possibly, little Annie; and from that last ordeal Georgie shrank more nervously, if possible, than from telling Roy himself. She could not do it. She would rather die than attempt it, and she said so to Jack, who was silent for a moment, and then regarding her intently, asked: