“Because it is not to her own interests that she should be connected with the affair,” she remarked with what seemed a sneer.
Then, for the first time, I realised what a terrible mistake I had committed. The warning I had given this woman she actually believed to be an additional sign of weakness on the part of my well-beloved!
“But her very life depends upon your words,” I cried. “You surely will not now withhold the truth?”
“I can say nothing—at least at present,” she responded evasively.
“But you must—you hear?” I cried. “You must!”
“I shall not until it suits me,” was the woman’s defiant answer, as her dark eyes flashed quickly upon me, and I recognised with what kind of person I had to deal. “Tell her that in this matter the stake is her life, or mine—and I prefer to keep my own.” And she laughed that harsh discordant laugh of a Frenchwoman triumphant.
“Then you refuse to tell the truth?” I demanded fiercely.
“I do.”
In that instant a bold plan had suggested itself. She expected to escape, but now she defied me I had no intention that she should; therefore I sprang forward, seized her, and at the same time shrieked with all my might—
“Murder! Murder! Help—help!”