Then she went to him.  “Trevor,” she said, and there was pleading in her voice, “do you know, I don’t want to talk about anything.  I think one gets over some troubles best that way.  Do you mind?”

He took her wrists very quietly, and drew her down beside him.  “What were you trying to tell me this afternoon?” he said.

She shivered and turned her face away.  “Nothing, really nothing.  I was foolish and upset.  Please let me forget it.”

She would have withdrawn from his hold, but his hands tightened upon her.  “Won’t you reconsider the matter?” he asked.  “It would be better for us both if you told me of your own accord.”

“Trevor!” She turned to him swiftly, flashing into his face a look of such wild alarm that he was touched, in spite of himself.

“My dear,” he said, “I have no wish to frighten you.  But you must see for yourself that it is utterly impossible for us to go on like this.  You are keeping something from me.  I want you to tell me quite quietly and without prevarication what it is.”

She turned white to the lips.  “There is nothing, Trevor.  Indeed, there is nothing,” she said.

His face changed, grew stern, grew implacable.  He bent towards her, still holding her firmly by the wrists.  He looked closely into her eyes, and in his own was neither accusation nor condemnation, only a deep and awful questioning that seemed to probe her through and through.

“For Heaven’s sake,” he said, “don’t lie to me!”

And Chris shrank, shrank from that dread scrutiny as she would have shrunk from naked steel.  She did not attempt to speak another word.

For seconds that seemed to her agonized senses like hours, he held her so, waiting, waiting for she knew not what.  Her heart thumped within her like the heart of a terrified creature fleeing for its life.  She began to pant audibly through the silence.  The strain was more than she could bear.

“Chris!” he said.

She started violently; every pulse leaped, every nerve jarred.  But she did not lift her eyes to his; she could not.

“Don’t tremble,” he said, his voice very cold and even.  “Just tell me the truth.  Begin with what happened at Valpre.”

Her white lips quivered.  “What—­how much—­do you know?”

“I will tell you that,” he said, “when you have answered me quite fully and unreservedly.”

She cast an imploring look at him that did not reach his eyes.  “But, Trevor, nothing happened,” she told him piteously.  “That is to say, nothing beyond—­” She broke off short.  “I was only a child.  I didn’t know,” she ended, in a confused murmur.

“What didn’t you know?” Stern and pitiless came the question.  His hands were holding her wrists tightly locked.  There was compulsion in their grasp.

She answered him because she could not help it, but her words were wild and incoherent.  “I didn’t know what it meant.  I didn’t see the harm of it.  I was too young.  It all happened before I realized.  And even then—­even then—­I didn’t understand—­that it was serious—­until—­until—­ the duel.  Trevor—­Trevor, you are hurting me!”