“Certainly; but I’m sorry that at present I am unable to satisfy it,” and her lips compressed themselves as a slight sigh again escaped them.
I was undecided whether she was wilfully deceiving me or whether it was under dire compulsion that she was concealing her motives.
“By your words you lead me to believe that you are my friend, Miss Bristowe; therefore it is surely permissible to give me an address where, in the future, I may write to you?”
“But I can’t see what good can come of it,” she responded, hesitatingly. “In fact, only harm can result in our acquaintanceship.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I have said. If we remain apart it will be better for both of us. Yet, somehow, Fate seems to throw us constantly into each other’s society.”
She was, of course, in ignorance of how I had traced her from Sterndale Road.
“True,” I remarked, “and that seems to me all the more reason why you should name some place where I may write.”
“Well,” she said at last, after long hesitation and blushing slightly; “if you should, at any time, really desire to write to me, you may address your letter to Farmer’s Library, Kensington High Street.”
Thanking her I scribbled the address, then tried to persuade her to allow me to remain longer. But she steadily refused.