aid. The psychological moment had come and Gavin Brice knew
it. Loathing himself for the role he must play and vowing
solemnly to his own heart that she should never be allowed to
suffer for any revelation she might make, he said with a
gentle insistence, "Tell me."




CHAPTER VII

SECRETS


There was a short silence. Brice looked anxiously through the
gathering darkness at the dimly seen face so near to his own.
He could not guess, for the life of him, whether the girl was
silent because she refused to tell him what he sought so
eagerly to know, or whether she was still fighting to control
her voice.

As he sat gazing down at her, there was something so tiny, so
fragile, so helplessly trustful about her, that it went
straight to the man's heart. He had played and schemed and
risked life itself for this crucial hour, for this hour when
he should have swept aside the girl's possible suspicions and
enlisted her complete sympathy for himself and could make her
trust him and feel keen remorse for the treatment he had
received.