"I want you to keep it
safely. In case anything happens, in the event that within one month I
have not returned and you have heard nothing of me, I wish you to open
it and keep what it contains. Promise me that you will do what I ask."
In a panic of indecision she got up from her chair, trying to frame a
score of questions, but none of them succeeded in passing the barrier of
her trembling lips.
"Promise me," he said softly yet impellingly, as he placed the little
packet in her hand and closed her fingers over it.
"I promise," she whispered, hardly knowing what she said.
Quickly he caught her in his powerful arms. For just a second he held
her there, his face close to hers, his blue eyes burning into hers with
a steady inscrutable gaze as if he was trying to read in them the love
her lips had refused to speak.
Then, so quickly that it was all over before she quite realized what had
happened, he had kissed her passionately full on the lips and was gone.
Overcome with the lassitude which follows emotional crises, trembling in
every limb, weak as from a long illness, the girl sank back into a
chair, still clutching in her hand the sealed packet Hoff had entrusted
to her. Minute after minute she sat there with staring eyes, with heart
beating madly, with her whole body racked with the torment of
her thoughts.
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