She took the chair and
sat down, still looking at him. He sat down too, and his eyes went
restlessly around the room as if they sought a hold that should withhold
them from her searching gaze. There was a short pause.
"Don't speak like that," she said at last. "It isn't your way, and I know
you too well--we know one another too well--to be anything but sincere. You
owe me something, too, and if I forbear you should understand why."
"I owe you something, do I?" he asked. "What do I owe you?"
Mrs. Rosscott caught her under lip in her teeth.
"You gave me a promise, Mr. Denham," she said, quite low, but most
distinctly--"a promise which you broke."
Jack flushed; his eyelids drooped for a minute.
"I didn't break it," he said. "I gave it up."
"Is there any difference?"
"A great difference."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Do you want to have the truth?" he said. "If you really do, I'll tell
you. But I don't ask to tell you, recollect, and if I were you I'd drop
the whole--I certainly would.--If I were you."
She looked at him in astonishment.
"I don't understand," she said. "Tell me what you mean."
He raised his hand to his bandaged head again.
"I think," he said, fighting hard to speak with utter indifference, "I
think that it would have been better if you had told me about Holloway."
At that her big eyes opened widely.
"What should I tell you about Mr. Holloway?" she asked. "What could I tell
you about him?"
"It isn't any use speaking like that," he said; and with the words he
suddenly leaped from his chair and began to plunge back and forth across
the small room.
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