“How can you control it?” he queried. “What is its true nature? Tell me,” he urged.
“No, I regret that I cannot satisfy your curiosity. It is—well—it’s a family matter,” I said; “therefore forgive me if I refuse to betray a confidence reposed in me as a friend of the family. It would not be fair to reveal anything told me in secrecy.”
“Of course not,” he said. “I fully understand, Mr Trewinnard. Forgive me for asking. I did not know that the matter was so entirely confidential.”
“It is. But I can assure you that, holding the key to the situation as I do, and being in a position to dictate terms to Miss Gottorp’s enemies, she need not in future entertain the slightest apprehension. The danger existed, I admit; but now it is over.”
“Then you advise us to return, Uncle Colin?” exclaimed the girl, swaying herself upon the chair.
“Yes—the day after to-morrow.”
“You are always so weirdly mysterious,” she declared. “I know you have something at the back of your mind. Come, admit it.”
“I have only your welfare at heart,” I assured her.
“Welfare!” she echoed, and as her eyes fixed themselves upon me she bit her lips. I knew, alas! the bitter trend of her thoughts. But her lover stood by, all unconscious of the blow which must ere long fall upon him, poor fellow. I pitied him, for I knew how much he was doomed to suffer, loving her so fondly and so well. He, of course, believed her to be a girl of similar social position to himself—a dainty little friend whom he had first met as a rather gawky schoolgirl at Eastbourne, and their friendship had now ripened to love.
“I feel that you, Mr Trewinnard, really have our welfare at heart,” declared the young man earnestly. “I know in what very high esteem Miss Gottorp holds you, and how she has been awaiting your aid and advice.”