“There is a secret reason,” his visitor replied. “She dare not.”
“Are you aware of the reason?” he demanded, quickly.
“I can guess. If it is as I suspect, then marriage with you is entirely out of the question. She must marry Zertho.”
“Because she is in fear of him?” he hazarded.
She shrugged her shoulders with that vivacity which only Frenchwomen possess, but no reply left her lips.
“From what does her strange fear arise?” he asked, bending towards her in his eagerness to learn the truth.
“An overwhelming terror holds her to Zertho. It is a bond which, although he may be hateful to her, as undoubtedly he is, she cannot break. She must become Princess d’Auzac.”
“She fears lest he should expose some hidden secret of her past?” he suggested.
“I don’t say that,” she answered. “Remember I have only suspicions. Nevertheless, from whatever cause arises her terrible dread its result is the same—it prevents her from becoming your wife.”
“Yes,” he admitted, plunged in gloomy reflections. “It does. I have come out here from London to see her, but she will tell me nothing beyond the fact that she is betrothed to this man, Zertho d’Auzac. At first I believed that the attractions of wealth had proved too strong for her to resist; but your words, in combination with hers, are proof positive that there is some strange, dark secret underlying her engagement to him.”