"All my life long, Astra," said he, in a deep, moved tone—(it is often easier to put a desired note into the voice, than a corresponding expression into the face)—"all my life long, I have had a strange desire to be trusted,—trusted implicitly. Faith without sight—blind, unquestioning faith—is to me one of the most beautiful as well as desirable things on earth; all the more so, perhaps, that it is not given to me to feel it. But it has always been my dream, my hope, to inspire it. In my ideal picture of the woman whom I should love, it was always her consummate, irresistible charm. Must I now make up my mind to do without it?"
Astra was touched. "If it did not seem to be wrong!" she exclaimed.
The doctor shook his head. "That is not trust," said he, "at least, not the trust that I mean. Who can so order circumstances that they shall never seem to condemn him? But the faith of which I speak, having once assured itself of the integrity of its beloved, never again admits it to be an open question."
Astra was silent. The doctor heaved a heavy sigh. "I see that I am not to realize my ideal," said he. "Well, it cannot be helped. I will give you the explanation that you need. Perhaps, being satisfied, in this instance, that I have a good reason for what I do, you will be able to trust me hereafter."
"I will, indeed I will!" exclaimed Astra, eagerly.
"The worst of it is," pursued the doctor, "that you compel me to betray a trust—your mother's trust."
Astra's cheek flushed. She had been miserable at the idea of keeping anything from her mother; was she, then, the one really excluded from confidence?
"Stay," said she, proudly, "I do not wish to hear anything that my mother desires to conceal from me."
"Then," replied the doctor, "it is impossible for me to explain why our engagement must not be made known, at present, to your mother."
Astra looked bewildered, as well she might, at this apparently inscrutable complication.