So you see I did what unfortunate women
have often been driven to do, I sold myself body and soul; and I got a
good price too--thirty thousand pounds!" and suddenly she burst into a
flood of tears, and began to sob as though her heart would break.
For a moment Harold Quaritch looked on bewildered, not in the least
understanding what Ida meant, and then he followed the impulse common
to mankind in similar circumstances and took her in his arms. She did
not resent the movement, indeed she scarcely seemed to notice it,
though to tell the truth, for a moment or two, which to the Colonel
seemed the happiest of his life, her head rested on his shoulder.
Almost instantly, however, she raised it, freed herself from his
embrace and ceased weeping.
"As I have told you so much," she said, "I suppose that I had better
tell you everything. I know that whatever the temptation," and she
laid great stress upon the words, "under any conceivable circumstances
--indeed, even if you believed that you were serving me in so doing--I
can rely upon you never to reveal to anybody, and above all to my
father, what I now tell you," and she paused and looked up at him with
eyes in which the tears still swam.
"Of course, you can rely on me," he said.
"Very well.
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