“A friend,” was her prompt reply. “But his very friendliness would, I knew, be fatal to my interests, so I had to fly. He recognised me, even in this dress, stopped me in the street, raised his hat and spoke. But I discerned his intention, therefore I passed on with affected indignation and without answering. Had I opened my mouth my voice might have betrayed me. I went on to Glasgow.”
“And there? What happened?”
She glanced at me in quick suspicion. I saw she was embarrassed by my question.
“Happened?” she echoed, nervously. “What do you mean?”
We were in the Park, and quite alone, therefore I halted, and looking her straight in the face exclaimed,—
“Something happened there, Sybil. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Sybil,” she said in a tone of reproach. “Am I no longer Tibbie to you, as of old? You are changed, Wilfrid—changed towards me. There is something in your manner so very unusual. What is it?”
“I desire to know the truth,” I said in a hard voice. “You are trying to keep back things from me which I ought to know. I trust you, and yet you do not trust me in return. Indeed, it seems very much as though you are trying to deceive me.”
“I am not,” she protested. “You still misjudge me, Wilfrid, and merely because there are certain things which it would be against my own interests to explain at this moment. Every woman is permitted to have secrets; surely I may have mine. If you were in reality my husband, then it would be different. Hitherto, you have been generosity itself towards me. Why withdraw it now, at the critical moment when I most require your aid and protection.”
“Why?”