"What has happened?" she cried. "Mon Dieu! you are killing her!"
And as I spoke she threw it away. She threw it through the doorway; she tried to throw it over the banisters of the stairs, but my arms were about hers, and it fell in the passage just beyond the door. I darted from her and picked it up. When I returned with it she was taking a gold chain from her neck. At the end of the chain hung a little gold key. This she held out to me.
"Open it here," she said in a low, eager voice.
The sudden change only increased my suspicions, or rather my conviction, that I had now the proof which I needed.
"Why, if you are so eager to show me the contents, did you try to throw it away?" I asked.
"I tried to throw it down into the hall," she answered.
"Oh, what would that matter?" she exclaimed impatiently. "You would have opened it in the hall. That was what I wanted. Open it here! At all events open it here!"
The very urgency of her pleading made me determined to refuse the plea.
"No, you have some other ruse, mademoiselle," said I. "Perhaps you wish to gain time for your friend in the next room. No, we will return there and open it comfortably by the fire."
I kept a tight hold upon the box. I shook it. To my delight I felt that there were papers within it. I carried it back to the fireside and sat down on a chair. Mademoiselle Sophie followed me close, and as I fixed the little gold key into the lock she laid her hand very gently upon my arm.
"I beg you not to unlock that box," she said; "if you do you will bring upon me a great humiliation and upon yourself much remorse. There is nothing there which concerns you. There are just my little secrets. A girl may have secrets, monsieur, which are sacred to her."
She was standing quite close to me, and her back was towards the French officer and her aunt. They could not see her face, and they could hardly have heard more than a word here and there of what she said. I answered her only by turning the key in the lock. She took her hand from my arm and laid it on the lid to hinder me from opening it.
"I wore the key on a chain about my neck, monsieur," she whispered. "Does that teach you nothing? Even though you are young, does it teach you nothing? I said that if you unlocked that box you would cause me great humiliation, thinking that would be enough to stop you. But I see I must tell you more. Read the letters, monsieur, question me about them, and you will make my life a very lonely one. I think so. I think you will destroy my chance of happiness. You would not wish that, monsieur. It is true that we are enemies, but some day this war will end, and you would not wish to prolong its sufferings beyond the end. Yet you will be doing that, monsieur, if you open that box."