“Why did you fear to reveal yourself to me, Miss Seymour?” I asked earnestly, looking straight into her soft brown eyes as the car rushed along.
But she avoided my gaze, while a flush overspreading her cheeks betrayed her embarrassment.
“Because—well, because I did not know how far you might be trusted,” was her frank, open response, after a moment’s hesitation. “Indeed, I do not even now know whether you would still remain our friend and preserve the secret if the ugly truth became revealed to you!”
Chapter Seven.
Dawnay Makes Confession.
Her curious reply greatly puzzled me. What could be “the ugly truth” to which she had referred?
At her side I sat in silence for some time. The car was tearing along a wide straight main road between dusty hedges and many telegraph wires, and as I glanced at her I saw that she was staring straight before her fixedly, with a strange hard look upon her beautiful countenance.
Perhaps I might have been mistaken, but at my mention of the dead man I felt certain that I saw in her eyes the light of unshed tears.