"You'd despise me if I
told you, for you can't realize what my life's been for five years. And
that's my one excuse."
"Only a fool would want a woman like you to excuse herself for
anything. I swear I wouldn't despise you. I couldn't. If you should tell
me--knowing you as little, or as well, as I do, that you'd been plotting
a murder, I'd be certain you were justified, and my first thought would
be to save you, as you're saving me now."
Annesley felt again the man's intense magnetism. Suddenly she wanted to
tell him everything. It would be a relief. She would watch his face and
see how it changed. It would be like having the verdict of the world on
what she had done--or meant to do.
"I saw an advertisement in the _Morning Post_," she said with a kind of
breathless violence, "from a man who--who wanted to meet a girl with--a
'view to marriage.'"
The words brought a blush so painful that the mounting blood forced tears
to her eyes. But she looked her _vis-a-vis_ unwaveringly in the face.
That did not change at all, unless the interest in his eyes grew warmer.
The sympathy she saw there gave Annesley a new and passionate desire to
defend herself.
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