"And you will speak to me?"
"I will."
"Having your promise, then, I am content, Varney."
"But you must be secret; not even in the wildest waste of nature, where you can well presume that naught but Heaven can listen to your whisperings, must you utter one word of that which I shall tell to you."
"Alas!" said Charles, "I dare not take such a confidence; I have said that it is not for myself; I seek such knowledge of what you are, and what you have been, but it is for another so dear to me, that all the charms of life that make up other men's delights, equal not the witchery of one glance from her, speaking as it does of the glorious light from that Heaven which is eternal, from whence she sprung."
"And you reject my communication," said Varney, "because I will not give you leave to expose it to Flora Bannerworth?"
"It must be so."
"And you are most anxious to hear that which I have to relate?"
"Most anxious, indeed—indeed, most anxious."
"Then have I found in that scruple which besets your mind, a better argument for trusting you, than had ye been loud in protestation. Had your promises of secrecy been but those which come from the lip, and not from the heart, my confidence would not have been rejected on such grounds. I think that I dare trust you."