"Do you think me capable of betraying you?" asked Glynn.
"No," after a pause, as if to plan her speech; "but I have more than myself to think of. You must not ask me any questions."
"Can you say nothing? Is there no way in which I can help you?"
"I fear not—I do not know—I—" she stopped and drew a long, sobbing breath—"I dare not speak. Any word might betray more than I ought."
"For your father's sake!—think of all he must endure. Have you any duty to come before what you owe him?"
He waited for her reply as for a sentence of life or death.
"Think of him! do I not think of him? My love and duty are his only. But"—she tried to withdraw her arm—"you must let me go; I dare not stay."
"I cannot let you go unless you promise to meet me again, or tell me where I may see you. No, I will not release your arm. Elsie—Miss Lambert, I have been seeking you for seven months; my brain has reeled at the horror of its own picture of your fate; I cannot let you go now. Why do you distrust me? Let me take you home. How could I leave you here in the dark alone?"
"Oh, do not torment me!" she exclaimed, and her voice expressed such pain that Glynn almost hesitated to persevere in his efforts to detain her. "In truth I long to take you with me; I am sure you are kind and true, and I fear to be alone; but I will brave anything, endure anything rather than say whence I came and whither I go. Do not be angry with me."
She burst into an agony of tears, leaning against him as if from sheer inability to stand alone.