Her look and the fascination in her voice seemed to pull the very heart out of him.
"You are asking a cruelly hard thing of me," he replied, with a tremor in his voice. "I don't understand—"
"No, you don't understand," she interrupted quickly. "It is enough to know that you have taken a girl's foolish commission too seriously, so seriously as to run the risk of making things even worse than they threatened to be. Now I ask you to leave well alone."
"If it is well," he said doubtfully.
"Of course. Why should it not be?" she rejoined, in a not very convincing tone. "Now I shall rely on you—and I am sure it will not be in vain—to respect my wishes. Things seem to be in a horrible muddle," she added with a rather dreary laugh, "but let's hope they will right themselves before long."
She rose, compelling him to rise too. Something in the tone and manner of her last speech made him quite unwilling to end their conference, and desperately anxious to speak out everything that was in his mind and try to bring matters to a crisis.
"Don't go for a moment," he said as she began to move away towards the house. "I have something to say to you."
She turned quickly and faced him with a suggestion of displeasure in her eyes. "What is it?" she said with a touch of impatience.
"Only this," he answered quietly. "Have you lost a brooch, Miss
Morriston?"
At the question the blood left her cheeks as it had done a little while before; then surged back till her face was suffused.