And Eliot echoed bitterly:
"Why?"
"I can not tell you, I only know that she did not accord me any welcome. She only looked sorry and frightened and cried out sharply: 'Oh, you have hunted me down! This is cruel, cruel; but, oh, Monsieur Carmontelle, for God's sake, do not betray me to Eliot—to Mr. Van Zandt.'"
"And then?" cried Edith, breathlessly.
"Then her little pupils came around her and hurried her inside the gate. She looked back at me, waved her little gloved hand imploringly, and cried out again, 'Do not betray me to Eliot, or any one.' Then she vanished inside the banker's door."
They sat looking sadly, and yet gladly, at one another. At least she lived, poor darling, and was out of the power of the wicked woman whose malice had lured her from home and love.
"If I could only see her, only speak to her, my poor little Una, I am sure I could win her confidence!" Eliot exclaimed, passionately.
"You are right; and indeed you must see her now," answered his friend. "Una must give you her confidence, must come home to you. It is not right that she, your wife, and my adopted child, should be slaving her young life away like this through some fancied duty."
"I must see her. I will go to Mr. Chesterton since she denies me a sight of her. I will tell him my story, I will ask him to plead my cause with Una," Eliot exclaimed, in strong agitation; and just a little later he stood before the banker's mansion ringing the bell, and looking up in the darkness at the front of the great house, thrilling with the thought that his loved, lost bride was so near to him at this moment, that it seemed almost impossible but that they must soon come face to face.
"And if she loves me still, as she said she did that happy night before she left me, I swear that no earthly power shall ever tear her again from my arms!" he vowed to himself.