Again her animation left her, and she was silent; and I, on my side, could think of nothing to say. Then her deep gray eyes flashed upon me a look that sent my pulses throbbing, an indefinable, pleading glance that shook my soul. “Can't you tell me--won't you tell me?” she said in a low tone that was the complement of the silent speech of the eyes. “I wish I could,” I whispered. “I know it must be right--it is right,” she said in the same tone. “But I wish that I might know. Will you not tell me?” “I will tell you some day,” I said brokenly. “Now it is another's, and I can not. But it shall all be yours.” “All?” “Everything.” In another moment I know not what I should have done, so stirred and tempted was I by her tone and look. But in an instant her manner changed, and she exclaimed in a mocking voice: “Now I have your promise, so I'll let you go. You'd better not linger, or mama will certainly have some business to talk over with you.” And before I could touch her hand she was gone, and her laughing “good night” echoed down the hall. I was puzzled by these changes of mood, and decided that Luella Knapp was a most unaccountable young woman. And then there dashed over me a sickening realization of what I had done, of what I had promised, and of how impossible it was that I should ever reveal to her the secret I guarded. I cursed the mad folly and crime of her father, for they stood between her and me. Yet under the subtle influence that she cast upon me I felt the bonds of duty relaxed and slipping away. I had now to confess to myself that I loved Luella Knapp. And she? I hoped and feared, and ran over in my mind every incident of my later visits that might tell in what regard I was held--the tones, the words, the manner, that ran from deep interest to indifference. And trying to untangle the skein, I was a good deal startled to feel a touch on my arm as I reached the sidewalk. “Oh, it's you, Porter, is it?” I exclaimed, on recognizing my retainer. “Is Barkhouse here?” “Yes, sir. An' here's Wilson with a message for you.” “A message for me! From whom?” Wilson took me aside, and thrust an envelope into my hand. “That come to your room--about nine o'clock, I reckon,” he said. “Leastways, that's the first we saw of it. An' Mother Borton was there, an' she says she must see you to-night, sure. She wouldn't stay, but says you was to come down there before you goes to bed, sure, if you wants to keep out of trouble.” I looked at the envelope, and in the flickering light from the street-lamp I could make out the address to Henry Wilton. By the handwriting and by the indefinable scent that rose from the paper, I knew it for a message from the Unknown who held for me the secrets of life and death. CHAPTER XXI AT THE BIDDING OF THE UNKNOWN The windows of Borton's shone cheerfully, although it was past midnight. At our cautious approach a signal was given, and with the answering word a man appeared from the obscurity.