CHAPTER XIV WHEREIN CONFESSION IS MADE
"Well, Lola," I said at last, still holding her little hand in mine, "and why cannot you reveal to me the truth regarding the mystery of the death of Edward Craig?"
"For a very good reason—because I do not myself know the exact circumstances," was her prompt response, dropping into French. "I know that you have made an investigation. What have you discovered?"
"If you will be frank with me," I said, also in French, "I will be equally frank with you."
"But, have I not always been frank?" she protested. "Have I not always told you the truth, ever since that night in Scotland when you trapped me in your room. Don't you remember?"
"Yes," I replied in a low voice. "I remember, alas! too well. You promised in return for your liberty that you would break away from your uncle."
"Ah, I did—but I have been utterly unable, M'sieur Vidal," she cried quickly in her broken English. "You don't know how much I have suffered this past year—how terrible is my present position," she added in a tone of poignant bitterness.
"Yes, I quite understand and sympathize with you," I said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it, while she sat back in the big old-fashioned horse-hair arm-chair. "For weeks I have been endeavouring to find you—after you came to Cromer to call upon me. You have left the Boulevard Pereire."