secret."

"Silent partner," Bushwick suggested.

"I hope you'll always be silent," the girl shared in his drolling.
She began and told the whole story to the last detail, sparing neither
herself nor Verrian, who listened as if he were some one else not
concerned, and kept saying to himself, "what courage!" Bushwick listened
as mutely, with a face that, to Verrian's eye, seemed to harden from its
light jocosity into a severity he had not seen in it before. "It was
something," she ended towards Bushwick, with a catch in her breath,
"that you had to know."

"Yes," he answered, tonelessly.

"And now"--she attempted a little forlorn playfulness--"don't you think he
gave me what I deserved?"

Bushwick rose up and took her hand under his arm, keeping his left hand
upon hers.

"He! Who?"

"Mr. Verrian."

"I don't know any Mr. Verrian. Come, you'll take cold here."

He turned his back on Verrian, who fancied a tremor in her hat, as if she
would look round at him; but then, as if she divined Bushwick's
intention, she did not look round, and together they left him.