"Always yourself!" she exclaimed. "Do you ever think of the life you left to _me_--a life hardly more kind than the murder you contemplated. Before you opened the portals that you had meant for my tomb you made me swear never to reveal where I had passed those hours. Never, no matter what the provocation, was I to utter one word to implicate you in the tragedy that had ruined two households. _You_ were the one to be protected--_I_ the one to suffer! Had it not been for the sacrifice to my reputation in being found there with you dead--no explanation being possible from my closed lips--I would have accepted the alternative and swallowed the poison rather than live to bear what I do to-day!"
Weil closed his eyes again. His brain was swimming.
"And you are sure," asked the negro, after a pause, "that you have not violated that promise? You can still swear that you have never, even by a hint, given the least cause of suspicion against me?"
"Never!" said the girl. "I consider my oath binding, notwithstanding the manner in which it was obtained. You may live in what peace your conscience allows you, free at least from that fear."
The negro evidently believed her, for he heaved a sigh of relief.
"Good-by," she replied. "And--you are not to come again, remember. There is nothing to be gained from another meeting between us. If--if you want money--I can send it to you."
He lifted his head rather proudly at the last suggestion.
"I do not want any," he said. "I am not low enough for that. I took the sum from you to go to France, because I hoped--in my infatuation--that I could make myself something that you would not despise. If I had wanted money I could have got thousands out of your father, and I could still, notwithstanding the pretence of those men that they wrote the signatures I saw him forge. No, I mean to give you back what I had from you, if ever I can compose my mind enough to go to work and earn it. I have no ambition. I stay in my mother's cabin, day after day, unable to make the least effort. Perhaps I can do something--in time."
The negro took a step away, and then turned, as if unable to go so abruptly.
"Good-by," answered Daisy, impassively. "I want to tell you, now I think of it, where I got that $1,000 I gave you. It was lent to me by the man you hated so, Mr. Roseleaf."