Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/281

 talked little because there was a tabooed subject, to which each one gave her whole thought. He would have guessed at a moving romance or tragedy which shaped the lives of both, and drew them toward a common goal.

By this time Ian Barr was in England, and Nora's great desire was to find out what had happened to him there. Her own conduct was to be determined by Sir Ian Hereward's. Her Ian would be silent to the end, whatever it might be, she was only too sure. But if Sir Ian Hereward kept silence, she would not. She would speak, even though the breaking of her promise meant the end of Ian's love.

"They shan't kill him—they shan't kill him!" the panting of the engine said for her, in train and boat.

She could hardly wait to get to Dover, because there they would see the evening papers. There might be news of some sort, good or bad, in them. She felt there would be news. Big black headlines danced before her eyes: "Sir Ian Hereward Confesses to the Murder of his Wife." And, as a hideous alternative: "Evidence Piles Up Against Ian Barr. Damaging Statements by Sir Ian Hereward."

What if, with the best will in the world to break her promise, to tell all the truth as she had told it to Sir Ian, his word should be believed against hers, with