Richard colored and looked at her appealingly.
“On my honor, Bess, no. Can you think such a thing of me?”
She smiled, half sadly, and still watched him with a species of instinctive incredulity.
“If they make me desperate,” she began.
“You will let me help you?”
“Ah, but then—”
“Promise me, Bess. You saved my life once. And are you nothing to me?”
The words had slipped with sudden intensity off Richard’s tongue. They seemed the very words that Bess had hoped to hear from him, and that she was hungry to take into her heart. She drooped her shoulders a little, her eyes shining, her hands hanging idly at her sides.
“Mr. Jeffray—”
“Yes?”