"
"Wrong, quite wrong. Jasper is nothing to me; I use _him_ as a tool, not
you. If I threaten, it is to keep you from Octavia, who cannot forgive
the past and love you for yourself, as I have done all these miserable
months. You say I know but half the truth. Tell me the whole and I will
spare you."
If ever a man was tempted to betray a trust it was Treherne then. A
word, and Octavia might be his; silence, and she might be lost; for this
woman was in earnest, and possessed the power to ruin his good name
forever. The truth leaped to his lips and would have passed them, had
not his eye fallen on the portrait of Jasper's father. This man had
loved and sheltered the orphan all his life, had made of him a son, and,
dying, urged him to guard and serve and save the rebellious youth he
left, when most needing a father's care.
"I promised, and I will keep my promise at all costs," sighed Treherne,
and with a gesture full of pathetic patience he waved the fair tempter
from him, saying steadily, "I will never tell you, though you rob me of
that which is dearer than my life. Go and work your will, but remember
that when you might have won the deepest gratitude of the man you
profess to love, you chose instead to earn his hatred and contempt.
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