“Yes, Yes!” she owned, releasing him and withdrawing to the other end of the seat.

“But it almost drives me wild.  What shall I do?  You ought to know.  It is your fault.  You have frightened me out of daring to tell the truth.”

Had he, indeed, done that?  Verrian asked himself, and it seemed to him that he had done something like it.  If it was so, he must help her over her fear now.  He answered, bluntly, harshly:  “You must tell him all about it—­”

“But if he won’t believe me?  Do you think he will believe me?  Would you believe me?”

“You have nothing to do with that.  There is nothing for you but to tell him the whole story.  You mustn’t share such a secret with any one but your husband.  When you tell him it will cease to be my secret.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Well, then, you must tell him, unless—­”

“Yes,” she prompted.

Then they were both silent, looking intensely into each other’s eyes.  In that moment all else of life seemed to melt and swim away from Verrian and leave him stranded upon an awful eminence confronting her.

“Hello, hello!” a gay voice called, as if calling to them both.  “What are you two conspiring?” Bushwick, as suddenly as if he had fallen from the sky or started up from the earth, stood before them, and gave a hand to each—­his right to Verrian, his left to Miss Shirley.  “How are you, Verrian?  How are you, Miss Shirley?” He mocked her in the formality of his address.  “I’ve been shadowing you ever since you came into the park, but I thought I wouldn’t interrupt till you seemed to have got through your conversation.  May I ask what it was all about?  It seemed very absorbing, from a respectful distance.”

“Very absorbing, indeed,” Miss Shirley said, making room for him between them.  “Sit down and let me tell you.  You’re to be a partner in the secret.”

“Silent partner,” Bushwick suggested.

“I hope you’ll always be silent,” the girl shared in his drolling.  She began and told the whole story to the last detail, sparing neither herself nor Verrian, who listened as if he were some one else not concerned, and kept saying to himself, “what courage!” Bushwick listened as mutely, with a face that, to Verrian’s eye, seemed to harden from its light jocosity into a severity he had not seen in it before.  “It was something,” she ended towards Bushwick, with a catch in her breath, “that you had to know.”

“Yes,” he answered, tonelessly.

“And now”—­she attempted a little forlorn playfulness—­“don’t you think he gave me what I deserved?”

Bushwick rose up and took her hand under his arm, keeping his left hand upon hers.

“He!  Who?”

“Mr. Verrian.”

“I don’t know any Mr. Verrian.  Come, you’ll take cold here.”

He turned his back on Verrian, who fancied a tremor in her hat, as if she would look round at him; but then, as if she divined Bushwick’s intention, she did not look round, and together they left him.