Don't you--"

"What will you have to think of yourself if you don't tell?"

But the hard shot missed fire, the reason being that what she thought of
herself did not matter in the least just now. She was mamma's daughter,
Hugo Canning's betrothed, fighting for her own: and now that movement
upstairs warned her that she had no moment to lose.

Carlisle seized the slum doctor's arm with a resolute little hand. Her
voice, though panicky, was as inexorable as mamma's own.

"Promise me," said she, "that you will never repeat to anybody what I
told you in confidence."

The face of the young man, which was usually so harmless-looking, had
suddenly become quite stern. He looked as if he might ask God to pity
her again, given a very little more. When he spoke, he spoke brusquely:

"What you ask is a conspiracy of silence. I cannot make such a promise.
I cannot."

"Oh, how _can_ you be so hard! You've never meant anything but trouble
to me since the first minute I saw you! It isn't fair, don't you see it
isn't? This has happened so suddenly--I _must_ have time to think.
Promise that you won't say anything--at least till you hear from me
again...."

Silence. And then V. Vivian said, in a suddenly hopeless voice: