“ ‘Yes. One day I heard your step-father speaking of a secret which had been bequeathed to you. Tell me that secret and you are free.’ ”
“Then I understood everything. All his protestations and devotion were so many lies. His sole object was to get from me some day, either by winning my love, or by threats, the revelations which I had refused my step-father and which Jodot had tried to tear from me.”
She was silent. Ralph studied her closely. He had the strongest impression that she had told the whole truth.
He said gravely: “Would you like to know exactly the character of this brute?”
She shook her head.
“Is it really necessary?” she asked.
“It would be better that you should know it. Listen. [[135]]At Nice the securities which he was seeking at the Villa Faradoni did not belong to him. He had merely come to steal them. At Monte Carlo he demanded a hundred thousand francs for the return of some compromising letters. The fellow is just a crook and a thief, perhaps worse; that’s what he is.”
Aurelie did not protest. She must have had some notion of the real facts, and this brutal enumeration of them did not surprise her.
“You have saved me from him. I thank you,” she said gently.
“Alas, you ought to have confided in me instead of flying from me,” he said. “What a lot of time we have lost!”