At first she could not answer. Not so much from the suddenness of the whole thing and the emotion it had brought to her, as because she did not know what explanation to give.
"In going into Knollys's office just now I thought I saw you making your way up the stairs," he resumed. "I said to myself that it could not be; but I was unable to get the impression from my mind, and I waited. One of Knollys's clerks said that the young lady gone up had inquired for Alfred King. What can have taken you to him?"
He was growing somewhat less vehement. It had been a moment to convince him that the love which he had safely deemed he was subduing remained with him still in all its force. To rescue her from the undesirable companionship of Mr. Alfred King, from contact with the unhallowed crowd of gambling men, he would have parted with his life.
"I was compelled to go," she murmured "I could not help myself."
"Compelled to go up those stairs? Compelled to pay that man a visit?"
"Yes, I was. It was as distasteful to me as it could be, but I had no resource. I went there on business which no one but myself could transact. Thank you for your protection, Mr. Oswald. Cray."
She withdrew her arm now, and there was no opposition to it. Reason was resuming her seat in Oswald's mind, and he felt angry with himself for his excess of demonstration. All things considered, it had been scarcely wise.
"It is not at all a place for a young lady to go to," he resumed, as he walked by her side, and his manner became cold even to restraint. "The Knollys' are sufficiently respectable, but as much cannot be said for the tenants of the upper part of the house. You must not go to it again."
Once again she knew she should have to go to it, but she fervently hoped that would close the matter. She wished she could tell him the nature of the business that took her there. Parted though they were, she did care to stand well in the estimation of Oswald Cray; she esteemed him still beyond any one on earth.
"I never saw Mr. Alfred King until this morning; he is no acquaintance of mine, or ever likely to be. But he tells me he was once an intimate friend of my brother Edward's."