I shall
be--well, Heaven only knows what I shall be, but nothing that's likely to
cross your path again. All the same, it won't hurt you, it wouldn't hurt
any woman, however good, to hear what I'm going to tell you. It wouldn't
hurt any man--not even Conquest--that it should be said to his wife--in
the way that I shall say it. If it could, I wouldn't----"
"Wait a minute," she said, suddenly. "Let me ask you something." She took
a step toward him, though her hand rested still on the back of the chair.
"If I know it already," she continued, looking him in the eyes, "there
would be no necessity for you to speak?"
He took the time to consider this in all its bearings.
"I'd rather tell you in my own words," he said, at last; "but if you
assure me that you know, I shall be satisfied."
She took a step nearer to him still. Only the tips of her fingers now
rested on the back of the chair, to which she held, as to a bulwark.
Before she spoke she glanced round the room, as though afraid lest the
doors and walls might mistake her words for a confession.
"Then I do know," she said, quietly.
XXIII
"The old lady was willing enough to talk," Conquest assured Ford, in his
narrative of the taking of Amalia Gramm's testimony.
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