“I refuse!” she said. “I will not betray Stanley.”
“Betray him! It is not a case of betrayal. He is already betrayed. It is a matter of saving him.”
“From what?”
“You know. Don’t pretend ignorance, my dear Thelma! Surely we know each other well enough to be friends when Stan’s safety is concerned! He doesn’t know I’m here in Mürren, or he would have wired me his whereabouts, so that I could go straight to him.”
I listened amazed to this extraordinary conversation. I had never dreamed that the tall fair-haired young man who posed as a stranger to my temporary bride, was, after all, an intimate friend of her husband’s.
“Remember,” he went on. “Yelverton is highly inquisitive—and very naturally. He has been bamboozled from the very first. I wonder he hasn’t smelt a rat long ago. But, of course, he is your admirer. But we can’t waste time—we’ve been out here too long now. Tell me where I can find Stanley.”
“I refuse,” was her firmly repeated reply.
“In that case I shall act as I have already warned you.”
“I do not intend that you should meet him again. I know sufficient concerning your friendship—too much indeed,” she said determinedly. “I am not blind to the fact that you are my enemy and Stanley’s. He has hidden himself from his enemies, of whom you are one, and it is not likely I shall tell you,” she added.
“Very well, then—take the consequences. I shall tell what I know,” the man said.