"Must not ask you? Then you know."
"Please don't ask me."
They were in the light, amid laughter and the humming of tunes, and he waited till they reached a place where there was no one to hear, and then he said: "If you know and love me, it would be unnatural not to tell me."
"Howard, Peter may have denied his Lord, martyrs may have denied their religion, but you can't deny my love."
"No, I can't; but how can you keep from me a secret that concerns me so vitally? Do you suppose I could hold back anything from you?"
"Not if your mother were dead and you had taken an oath upon her memory?"
"Not if God were dead and I had sworn—"
"Howard, you must not talk that way."
He was holding her hand and he felt the ripples of her agitation. "I think I know your secret," he said. "You have cause to believe that his mind is giving way and you don't want to distress me by confessing it—have been sworn to silence, as if it could be kept hidden from me."
She admitted that she did not believe that his mind was sound, and he accepted it as the secret which she had at first held back, but her conscience arose against the deception of leaving him so completely in the dark. "Howard, you have often said in your joking way that I have the honor of a man."