Perhaps they hinted something of the sort to him, for the first time he found himself alone with her, he said to her:
"Miss Fielding, is it possible that you have never told my mother and sisters of my marriage?"
Jewel looked up at him with her radiant eyes, and answered:
"You might have known that I would not betray your secret."
He was nettled by her use of that word. It seemed like a tacit reproach to him, and while he paused for words in which to reply, she added:
"Of course I knew that if you had desired them to know you would have confided in them before you went away. So I respected your desire, and not a word of it has passed my lips."
"You misunderstood me," he rejoined, eagerly. "I meant them to know—only I was weak and sick still when I went away, and it was so painful to reopen that cruel wound. I fully expected they would hear all from you." She was silent, twisting her ringed fingers slowly in and out, and Laurie Meredith continued: "I wish that you had spoken, for now the duty falls on me. I feel like a wretch and a coward, keeping this secret from my nearest and dearest."
Jewel's dark eyes sought his face with such a strange look that he said, involuntarily:
"Well?"
She answered, deliberately: