"You certainly are not."
"And yet, I never in all my life was so absolutely staggered as I have been by the occurrences of to-night."
"Say on."
"There is a frightful, a hideous solution of them; one which every consideration will tend to add strength to, one which I tremble to name now, although, yesterday, at this hour, I should have laughed it to scorn."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, it is so. Tell no one that which I am about to say to you. Let the dreadful suggestion remain with ourselves alone, Henry Bannerworth."
"I—I am lost in wonder."
"You promise me?"
"What—what?"
"That you will not repeat my opinion to any one."