"Sworn to keep!" It flashed upon him like a revelation. "Sworn to whom? to your father, Harrie?"
"Do not ask me! I can tell you nothing—I dare not! I am bound by an awful vow! And, oh, I think I am the most wretched creature in the wide world!"
He raised her up; he kissed the white, despairing face again and again—a rain of rapturous kisses. A ton weight seemed suddenly lifted off his heart.
"I see it all," he cried—"I see it all now! Fool that I was not to understand sooner. There was some mystery, some guilt, perhaps, in Captain Hunsden's life, and he revealed it to you on his death-bed, and made you swear to keep his secret. Am I not right?"
She did not look up. He could feel her shivering from head to foot.
"Yes, Everard."
"And this man has in some way found it out, and wishes to trade upon it, to extort money from you? I have often heard of such things. Am I right again?"
"Yes, Everard," very faint and sad.
"Then, my own dearest, leave me to deal with him; see him and fear him no more. I will seek him out. I will not ask to know it. I will pay him his price and send him about his business."
He rose as he spoke. But Harriet clung to him with a strange, white face.