"Who authorized you to tell _me_ what Murray Davenport desired? He would have desired what I desire, I assure you! You sha'n't put me off with a quiet, determined manner. We shall see whether the law can force you to speak. You admit you would go far to avoid the test."
"That's because I shouldn't like to be involved in a raking over of the affairs of Murray Davenport. To me it would be an unhappy business, I do admit. The man is best forgotten."
"I'll not have you speak of him so! I love him! and I hold you answerable to me for your knowledge of his disappearance. I'll find a way to bring you to account!"
Her tearful vehemence brought a wave of tenderness to his face, a quiver to his lips. Noting this, Larcher quickly intervened:
"In pity to a woman, don't you think you ought to tell her what you know? If there's no guilt on your part, the disclosure can't harm you. It will end her suspense, at least. She will be always unhappy till she knows."
"She will grow out of that feeling," said Turl, still watching her compassionately, as she dried her eyes and endeavored to regain her composure.
"No, she won't!" put in Edna Hill, warmly. "You don't know her. I must say, how any man with a spark of chivalry can sit there and refuse to divulge a few facts that would end a woman's torture of mind, which she's been undergoing for months, is too much for me!"
Turl, in manifest perturbation, still gazed at Florence. She fixed her eyes, out of which all threat had passed, pleadingly upon him.
"If you knew what it meant to me to grant your request," said he, "you wouldn't make it."
"It can't mean more to you than this uncertainty, this dark mystery, is to me," said Florence, in a broken voice.
"It was Davenport's wish that the matter should remain the closest secret. You don't know how earnestly he wished that."
"Surely Davenport's wishes can't be endangered through _my_ knowledge of any secret," Florence replied, with so much sad affection that Turl was again visibly moved. "But for the misunderstanding which kept us apart, he would not have had this secret from me. And to think!--he disappeared the very day Mr. Larcher was to enlighten him. It was cruel! And now you would keep from me the knowledge of what became of him. I have learned too well that fate is pitiless; and I find that men are no less so."