'Tell me all, and I will help you.

Tell me nothing, and have nothing for your pains.' 'Help me ?' exclaimed Basil, in scornful impatience.

'Am I such a fool as to think you would wish to help me, even if you could ?' 'Listen to me, Basil.' She spoke in a deep note which was half friendliness, half menace.

'I am not wont to have my requests refused.
Leave me thus, and you have one more enemy--an enemy more to be dreaded than all the rest.

Already I know something of this story, and I can know the whole of it as soon as I will; but what I want now is to hear the truth about your part in it.