"But I am," I declared vehemently. "I love you, Phrida, with all my soul, and I will never believe ill of you—never, never!"
"How can you do otherwise in these terrible circumstances?" she queried, with a strange contraction of her brows.
"I love you, and because I love you so dearly—because you are all the world to me," I said, pressing her to my heart, "I will never accept what an enemy may allege—never, until you are permitted to relate your own story."
I still held the weapon in my hand, and I saw that her eyes wandered to it.
"Ah! Teddy!" she cried, with sudden emotion. "How can I thank you sufficiently for those words? Take that horrible thing and hide it—hide it anywhere from my eyes, for sight of it brings all the past back to me. Yet—yet I was afraid," she went on, "I dare not hide it, lest any one should ask what had become of it, and thus suspicions might be aroused. Ah! every time I have come into this room it has haunted me—I seem to see that terrible scene before my eyes—how—how they——"
But she broke off short, and covering her face with both hands added, after a few seconds' silence:
"Ah! yes, take it away—never let me gaze upon it again. But I beg of you, dear, to—to preserve my secret—my terrible secret!"
And she burst into tears.
"Not a single word shall pass my lips, neither shall a single soul see this knife. I will take it and cast it away—better to the bottom of the Thames. To-night it shall be in a place where it can never be found. So go to your room, and rest assured that you, darling, have at least one friend—myself."
I felt her breast heave and fall as I held her in my strong embrace.