I was silent. Was any living man ever placed in dilemma more difficult? What could I reply? That she was in real deep earnest I saw from her white, drawn countenance. The dark rings around her eyes told their own tale. She was desperate, and she declared that by acting as she suggested I could save her.
The dead, staring, clean-shaven countenance of that man in the wood arose before me, and I held my breath, my eyes fixed upon hers.
She saw that I hesitated to compromise her and implicate myself.
Then slowly she raised my hand to her lips and kissed it, saying in a strange voice, so low that I hardly caught the words,—
“Wilfrid, I—I can tell you no more. My life is entirely in your hands. Save me, or—or I will kill myself. I dare not face the truth. Give me my life. Do whatever you will. Suspect me; hate me; spurn me as I deserve, but I crave mercy of you—I crave of you life—life!”
And releasing me she stood motionless, her hands clasped in supplication, her head bent, not daring to look me again in the face.
What could I think? What, reader, would you have thought? How would you have acted in such circumstances?