“Ah no!” she gasped, turning to me in quick apprehension. “You must do nothing. Otherwise he may—”
“What may he do?”
She was silent, gazing aimlessly out of the window across the broad meadow-lands, now misty and silent in the dusk.
“He may,” she said, in a low, broken voice, “he may tell the world the truth!”
“What truth?”
“The truth he knows—the knowledge by which he compelled me to become his wife,” and she held her hand to her breast, as though to stay the wild beating of her young heart.
I tried to induce her to reveal that secret to me, her most devoted friend, but she refused.
“No,” she said in a low, broken voice, “do not ask me, Gilbert—for I know now that I may be permitted to call you by your Christian name—because I cannot tell you of all men. It is for me to remain silent—and to suffer.”
Her face was very pale, and I saw by her look of determination that her mind was made up; even though she trusted me as she did, nevertheless no power would induce her to reveal the truth to me.
“But you know what reason your father had in appointing his friend Dawson to be controller of your fortune,” I said. “I felt confident that a word from you would result in his withdrawal from the office he now holds. You cannot affect ignorance of this mysterious motive of your father’s?”