"Pardon me," I began, "we were speaking just now--"

"Oh, dear me!" cried Major Fitz-David. "Is this the other subject?"

"Yes--this is the other subject."

The Major put down his pen for the second time, and regretfully dismissed from his mind Madame Mirliflore and the autumn soup.

"Yes?" he said, with a patient bow and a submissive smile. "You were going to say--"

"I was going to say," I rejoined, "that your promise only pledges you not to tell the secret which my husband is keeping from me. You have given no promise not to answer me if I venture to ask you one or two questions."

Major Fitz-David held up his hand warningly, and cast a sly look at me out of his bright little gray eyes.

"Stop!" he said. "My sweet friend, stop there! I know where your questions will lead me, and what the result will be if I once begin to answer them. When your husband was here to-day he took occasion to remind me that I was as weak as water in the hands of a pretty woman.

He is quite right. I _am_ as weak as water; I can refuse nothing to a pretty woman. Dear and admirable lady, don't abuse your influence! don't make an old soldier false to his word of honor!"

I tried to say something here in defense of my motives. The Major clasped his hands entreatingly, and looked at me with a pleading simplicity wonderful to see.

"Why press it?" he asked. "I offer no resistance. I am a lamb--why sacrifice me? I acknowledge your power; I throw myself on your mercy.

All the misfortunes of my youth and my manhood have come to me through women. I am not a bit better in my age--I am just as fond of the women and just as ready to be misled by them as ever, with one foot in the grave. Shocking, isn't it? But how true! Look at this mark!" He lifted a curl of his beautiful brown wig, and showed me a terrible scar at the side of his head. "That wound (supposed to be mortal at the time) was made by a pistol bullet," he proceeded. "Not received in the service of my country--oh dear, no! Received in the service of a much-injured lady, at the hands of her scoundrel of a husband, in a duel abroad. Well, she was worth it." He kissed his hand affectionately to the memory of the dead or absent lady, and pointed to a water-color drawing of a pretty country-house hanging on the opposite wall. "That fine estate," he proceeded, "once belonged to me. It was sold years and years since. And who had the money? The women--G.o.d bless them all!--the women. I don't regret it. If I had another estate, I have no doubt it would go the same way. Your adorable s.e.x has made its pretty playthings of my life, my time, and my money--and welcome! The one thing I have kept to myself is my honor. And now _that_ is in danger. Yes, if you put your clever little questions, with those lovely eyes and with that gentle voice, I know what will happen. You will deprive me of the last and best of all my possessions. Have I deserved to be treated in that way, and by you, my charming friend?--by you, of all people in the world? Oh, fie! fie!"

He paused and looked at me as before--the picture of artless entreaty, with his head a little on one side. I made another attempt to speak of the matter in dispute between us, from my own point of view. Major Fitz-David instantly threw himself prostrate on my mercy more innocently than ever.

"Ask of me anything else in the wide world," he said; "but don't ask me to be false to my friend. Spare me _that_--and there is nothing I will not do to satisfy you. I mean what I say, mind!" he went on, bending closer to me, and speaking more seriously than he had spoken yet "I think you are very hardly used. It is monstrous to expect that a woman, placed in your situation, will consent to be left for the rest of her life in the dark. No! no! if I saw you, at this moment, on the point of finding out for yourself what Eustace persists in hiding from you, I should remember that my promise, like all other promises, has its limits and reserves. I should consider myself bound in honor not to help you--but I would not lift a finger to prevent you from discovering the truth for yourself."

At last he was speaking in good earnest: he laid a strong emphasis on his closing words. I laid a stronger emphasis on them still by suddenly leaving my chair. The impulse to spring to my feet was irresistible.

Major Fitz-David had started a new idea in my mind.

"Now we understand each other!" I said. "I will accept your own terms, Major. I will ask nothing of you but what you have just offered to me of your own accord."

"What have I offered?" he inquired, looking a little alarmed.

"Nothing that you need repent of," I answered; "nothing which is not easy for you to grant. May I ask a bold question? Suppose this house was mine instead of yours?"

"Consider it yours," cried the gallant old gentleman. "From the garret to the kitchen, consider it yours!"

"A thousand thanks, Major; I will consider it mine for the moment.

You know--everybody knows--that one of a woman's many weaknesses is curiosity. Suppose my curiosity led me to examine everything in my new house?"

"Yes?"

"Suppose I went from room to room, and searched everything, and peeped in everywhere? Do you think there would be any chance--"

The quick-witted Major antic.i.p.ated the nature of my question. He followed my example; he too started to his feet, with a new idea in his mind.

"Would there be any chance," I went on, "of my finding my own way to my husband's secret in this house? One word of reply, Major Fitz-David!

Only one word--Yes or No?"

"Don't excite yourself!" cried the Major.

"Yes or No?" I repeated, more vehemently than ever.

"Yes," said the Major, after a moment's consideration.

It was the reply I had asked for; but it was not explicit enough, now I had got it, to satisfy me. I felt the necessity of leading him (if possible) into details.

"Does 'Yes' mean that there is some sort of clew to the mystery?" I asked. "Something, for instance, which my eyes might see and my hands might touch if I could only find it?"

He considered again. I saw that I had succeeded in interesting him in some way unknown to myself; and I waited patiently until he was prepared to answer me.

"The thing you mention," he said, "the clew (as you call it), might be seen and might be touched--supposing you could find it."

"In this house?" I asked.

The Major advanced a step nearer to me, and answered--

"In this room."

My head began to swim; my heart throbbed violently. I tried to speak; it was in vain; the effort almost choked me. In the silence I could hear the music-lesson still going on in the room above. The future prima donna had done practicing her scales, and was trying her voice now in selections from Italian operas. At the moment when I first heard her she was singing the beautiful air from the _Somnambula,_ "Come per me sereno." I never hear that delicious melody, to this day, without being instantly transported in imagination to the fatal back-room in Vivian Place.

The Major--strongly affected himself by this time--was the first to break the silence.

"Sit down again," he said; "and pray take the easy-chair. You are very much agitated; you want rest."

He was right. I could stand no longer; I dropped into the chair. Major Fitz-David rang the bell, and spoke a few words to the servant at the door.

"I have been here a long time," I said, faintly. "Tell me if I am in the way."

"In the way?" he repeated, with his irresistible smile. "You forget that you are in your own house!"

The servant returned to us, bringing with him a tiny bottle of champagne and a plateful of delicate little sugared biscuits.

"I have had this wine bottled expressly for the ladies," said the Major.

"The biscuits came to me direct from Paris. As a favor to _me,_ you must take some refreshment. And then--" He stopped and looked at me very attentively. "And then," he resumed, "shall I go to my young prima donna upstairs and leave you here alone?"

It was impossible to hint more delicately at the one request which I now had it in my mind to make to him. I took his hand and pressed it gratefully.

"The tranquillity of my whole life to come is at stake," I said. "When I am left here by myself, does your generous sympathy permit me to examine everything in the room?"

He signed to me to drink the champagne and eat a biscuit before he gave his answer.

"This is serious," he said. "I wish you to be in perfect possession of yourself. Restore your strength--and then I will speak to you."

I did as he bade me. In a minute from the time when I drank it the delicious sparkling wine had begun to revive me.

"Is it your express wish," he resumed, "that I should leave you here by yourself to search the room?"

"It is my express wish," I answered.