"You
didn't tell me his name."
"Oh, please!" she said tremulously.
He took her hands gently into his, and stood facing her. The moonlight
was full in his eyes. They shone with a strange intensity.
"Do you remember," he said, "how I once said to you that I was romantic
enough to like to see a love affair go the right way?"
She did not answer him. She was trembling in his hold.
He waited for a few seconds; then spoke, still kindly, but with a force
that in a measure compelled her:
"That is why I want you to tell me his name."
She turned her face aside.
"I--I can't!" she said piteously.
"Then I hold you to your engagement," said Lester Cheveril, with quiet
determination.
Her hands leapt in his. She threw him a quick uncertain glance.
"You can't mean that!" she said.
"I do mean it," he rejoined resolutely.
"But--but--" she faltered. "You don't really want to marry me? You
can't!"
He looked grimly at her for a moment. Then abruptly he broke into a
laugh that rang and echoed exultantly in the deep shadows behind them.
"I want it more than anything else on earth," he said. "Does that
satisfy you?"
His face was close to hers, but she felt no desire to escape. That laugh
of his was still ringing like sweetest music through her soul.
He took her shoulders between his hands, searching her face closely.
"And now," he said--"now tell me his name!"
Yet a moment longer she withstood him.
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