“What will I do? I will tell him to his face that you are mine—that he has no right to you. And you will refuse to become his wife.”
“Ah!—yes—but you must not do that,” she declared. “Why not?”
“No. I beg of you to do nothing rash,” she urged in breathless anxiety, laying her hand upon my arm.
“But I will not allow you—my own well-beloved—to become the wife of another!”
“Godfrey,” she said, in so low a voice that it was scarcely above a whisper, “you must. There is no way of escape for me.”
“Then you are a victim of this nameless man!”
She nodded in the affirmative.
“Who is he? Tell me,” I demanded. “I have a right to know.”
“Yes, you have, indeed, a right, but I have given my word of honour to say nothing. I cannot tell his name—even to you.”
The mystery of it all somehow aroused my suspicions. Was she deceiving me? Had she invented this nameless lover with some ulterior object? No man can ever fathom the ingenuity of a woman who intends to deceive.