But she dropped her face on his shoulder and hid it.
"Has he left the village, Everard ?" very faintly.
"I can not say.

I only know I have forbidden him this place," he replied.

"Harrie, Harrie, my little wife! You are very merciless! You are torturing me, and I--I would die to save you an instant's pain!" At that eloquent cry she slipped out of his arms and fell on her knees before him, her clasped hands hiding her face.
"May God grant me a short life!" was her frenzied cry, "for I never can tell you--never, Everard, not on my dying bed--the secret I have sworn to keep!" "Sworn to keep!" It flashed upon him like a revelation.

"Sworn to whom?
to your father, Harrie ?" "Do not ask me! I can tell you nothing--I dare not! I am bound by an awful vow! And, oh, I think I am the most wretched creature in the wide world!" He raised her up; he kissed the white, despairing face again and again--a rain of rapturous kisses.

A ton weight seemed suddenly lifted off his heart.
"I see it all," he cried--"I see it all now! Fool that I was not to understand sooner.