[CHAPTER XXIV.]
Julius Revington stood looking in silence at the beautiful, agitated girl as she repeated, sadly:
"The secret belongs to another. I have no right to reveal it."
"Is it a secret of shame?" Julius Revington asked, slowly.
Irene started, and flashed a look of anger upon him through her tear-wet lashes.
"You are impertinent," she said, sharply; "you have no right to seek to penetrate the secret of my past!"
"I have the same right as the physician who probes the wound to heal it," he replied, coolly.
"You!—you can heal no wound of mine!" she flashed, almost disdainfully.
"You think so, but you are wrong," said Julius Revington. "Sit down, Miss Berlin, I have much to say to you. It is for your own good that you should listen to it."
The earnestness of his tone impressed Irene against her will. She sat down slowly on the soft, green grass, still with a mutinous pout on her lips, and her eyes turned coldly away from him.