‘No! not one, until to-morrow! You will not try to keep me now, will you?’—imploringly, as if to say that if he _did_ try, he would certainly succeed—‘because they might hear of it and be angry.’ ‘You shall do just as you think best, my darling, on one condition.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘That you tell me you love me before you go—I cannot sleep without it.’ I could not see, but I fancied, from her stifled tones, that he had clasped his arms about her. ‘Oh! my love! my love!’ she repeated fervently; ‘_I do love you!_’ And then she slipped away and closed the kitchen-door softly, and after an interval of half a minute I heard the other figure step carefully across the paved court and pass into the open street again. And I turned from the window and sank down on my knees beside my bed, and prayed for a long, long time, for _petite_ Ange and for myself, and judgment to know what best to do. [Illustration: [Fleuron]] CHAPTER VII. MASTER FRED. The reverie which followed this, to me, astounding revelation resulted in the decision that it was my duty to tell Mr. Lovett what I had overheard. I hardly know, at this period, whether I did right or wrong—whether I should have shown more wisdom in speaking to Tessie or to Ange herself—whether, in fact, any other course of action could have averted the calamity that so quickly followed it. But it can be well understood how difficult a part I had to play in warning my friends against the man who had wronged me. A thousand times during that night I told myself that I could not do it; that my motives would be misinterpreted, and that if Cave Charteris had failed in his allegiance to me, it was no reason he should be untrue to Angela Lovett. She evidently liked him. No girl of her modesty and virtuous bringing up could have said the words I had heard her say unless she meant them from the bottom of her heart. Yet she was so easily deceived. She was so much too credulous of the goodness of human nature to be fit to judge for herself. Had it been Tessie whom Charteris had selected for his attentions, I should have left them to their own devices. Tessie knew something of the world: her eyes had been opened to a part, at least, of its iniquity; but Ange was a perfect child, both in mind and experience. The complete faith she put in her father’s saintliness was a proof of this, and I felt sure, upon reviewing the discovery I had made, that she would never have kept her relations with Mr. Charteris a secret from those she so much loved and trusted, had he not brought some powerful motive to bear upon her reticence.