He turned again towards her.

‘Then will you be honest with me? It is the last and only thing I shall ask of you.’

‘I—I will try,’ she answered in a broken voice.

‘You will!’

‘Yes; if you will listen to me patiently.’

She sank into a chair, and covered her face with her hands. He stood watching her, and saw that her thin, white, trembling fingers were wet with tears.

‘Promise,’ she said, ‘that what I am about to say to you shall never be told to any other living soul.’

‘I promise.’

‘Not even to my brother.’

‘Not even to him.’