Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/145

 "Have you told anybody about Roakby?"

Micky had never seen her like that&mdash;without her mask of light frivolity and teasing insincerity, and he liked her better than he ever had before.

“No, Mrs. Trevelyan,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if you have n’t I want you to promise me that you won’t&mdash;at any rate not for a few days. I can’t explain. Only something very terrible may happen if you do. Please don’t ask me. I can’t think to-day. When I&mdash;when I read it over your shoulder in the wireless house it bowled me out or I ’d have waked you. I know I’d have no business to read it, of course, but now it ’s done. Please promise me you ’ll keep it to yourself.”

She raised a serious, sweet face to his and laid a beseeching hand upon his blue sleeve. He felt a quick pang of compunction for his unworthy thoughts of her. Was it possible that this woman was anything but noble? Had he not done her an injustice? Was there anything but entire unselfishness in this tense appeal directed towards the saving of a friend?