This was a question he had feared to ask, and he anticipated from her a direct refusal to reply. He was amazed at the readiness with which she responded.
“Humble, sir,” she continued, in a thoughtful voice, which had a singular tone of sadness pervading it; “but a model of purity, innocence, and faithfulness!”
“You have been with her alone, up to the hour you came hither to-night?”
“With her alone.”
“Will you swear this?”
“In the face of Heaven, it is true, sir.”
Mr. Grahame paced the room again.
There was intense relief afforded to him by her replies, for, heartless and selfish, he cared little what she had suffered during what he considered to be her madly capricious act, so that she had not disgraced his name. He would have looked over even her self-degradation, if he had been sure that the crime was confined alone to her breast and that of the partner of her sin, and it would not interfere with his new-formed scheme.
“Helen,” he said, pausing abruptly before her, “you must give me your promise that you will some day explain the mystery which hangs over the interval of your flight from home, if I forbear to urge it now?”
“I do, sir,” she replied, in a low tone.