I stared at her. “Don’t you remember”—I leaned forward—“the end of the cameo necklace, the part that was broken off, and was found in the black sealskin bag, stained with—with blood?”
“Blood,” she said dully. “You mean that you found the broken end? And then—you had my gold pocket-book, and you saw the necklace in it, and you—must have thought—”
“I didn’t think anything,” I hastened to assure her. “I tell you, Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were unhappy, and that I had no right to help you. God knows, I thought you didn’t want me to help you.”
She held out her hand to me and I took it between both of mine. No word of love had passed between us, but I felt that she knew and understood. It was one of the moments that come seldom in a lifetime, and then only in great crises, a moment of perfect understanding and trust.
Then she drew her hand away and sat, erect and determined, her fingers laced in her lap. As she talked the moon came up slowly and threw its bright pathway across the water. Back of us, in the trees beyond the sea wall, a sleepy bird chirruped drowsily, and a wave, larger and bolder than its brothers, sped up the sand, bringing the moon’s silver to our very feet. I bent toward the girl.
“I am going to ask just one question.”
“Anything you like.” Her voice was almost dreary. “Was it because of anything you are going to tell me that you refused Richey?”
She drew her breath in sharply.
“No,” she said, without looking at me. “No. That was not the reason.”