“Plans I have made for our mutual protection,” she whispered. “If you knew all the details you would not be surprised at my anxiety that you should remain inactive and leave all to me. I am but a woman; nevertheless, I am at least loyal to you, the man I love. Forgive me,” she implored, raising her white, pained face to mine—“forgive me, Gerald, I beg and pray of you. Have confidence in me, and I will some day, ere long, prove to you that I am, after all, worthy of your love.”
“Forgiveness is easy, but forgetfulness difficult,” I said, taking her hand and looking straight into the dark splendour of those soft eyes.
After the shrill-tongued, voluble foreign women by whom I was ever surrounded, this sweet English girl breathed peace and paradise to my wearied heart.
“But you will forgive me?” she implored in deep earnestness. “Say that you will!”
Her attitude impressed upon me forcibly the conviction that, after all, she really loved me. Nevertheless, the whole affair seemed so mysterious and perplexing that I found it difficult to regard her motives with unquestioning faith. “Yes,” I said at length, “I forgive you, Edith. But until you can explain all the mystery, I tell you frankly that I cannot entertain full confidence in you.”
“You will, however, leave me to carry out the plan I have formed?” she urged anxiously.
“If you wish.”
“And if I am denounced by one or other of my enemies, you will not believe that denunciation before I am at liberty to expose to you the whole truth? Promise me that—do!”
“Very well,” I responded, “it shall be as you wish.”
Then as those words left my lips she sprang forward with a loud cry of joy, and, throwing her arms about my neck, kissed me wildly in joy, saying: