Of a sudden, as they went on through the leafless wood she halted, and looking into his face with her beautiful eyes, exclaimed with a girl’s frankness:
“I wonder, Mr Hebberdine, if I might trust you?—I mean if you would help me?”
“Trust me!” he echoed very surprised, as their acquaintanceship had been of such short duration. “If you repose any confidence in me, Miss Blair-Stewart, I assure you I shall respect its secrecy.”
Her eyes met his, and he was startled to see in them a look of desperation such as he had not seen in any woman’s gaze before. In that moment the mask seemed to have fallen from her, and she stood there before him craving his pity and sympathy—his sympathy above that of all other men!
Was not his position a curious one? The very girl whom he had come to trick and to deceive was asking him to accept her confidences.
“You are very kind indeed to say that,” she exclaimed, her face brightening. “I hardly know whether I dare ask you to stand my friend, for we’ve only known each other two or three days.”
“Sufficiently long, Miss Elfrida, to win me as your faithful champion,” the young man declared, whereupon her cheeks were again suffused by a slight flush.
“Well, the fact is,” she said with charming bluntness, “though I have lots of girl friends, I have no man friend.”
“There is Archie Gould,” he remarked, “I thought he was your friend!”
“He’s merely a silly boy,” she laughed. “I said a man friend—like yourself.”