Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/116

96 “And suppose I put my oar in?” said he, savagely.

“Then you would have to tell him the truth.”

“Oh, curse your infernal woman’s wit!” cried he. “Are you not ashamed of yourself, that you can stand there looking me in the face?”

“No, I am not ashamed to try to save this life by hook or crook. It is the life of the man I loved.”

“Loved! So you don’t love him now? Like everybody else, you believe him guilty? Well, well, that’s something!”

“Not of murder,” she said. “That I’ll never believe. The other struck first; that is what we want the best man at the Bar to prove!”

He supplemented his cruel irony by laughing aloud at her notions of criminal law. She reminded him it was himself who had put them into her head; her view tonight was only his of the night before.

Harding changed his ground. “If you get him off with his neck—what then?”

“I shall be grateful to Mr. Daintree all my life.”

“I daresay, but I want more than that. You said something about making up to him for this. Will you marry him if he asks you when it’s all over?”

Claire turned very pale. “I pray God he never may,” she whispered.

Mr. Harding looked her through and through. “Well! I may or may not interfere,” said he. “I make no promise either way.” And at last she was left in peace.

She fell upon her knees, and prayed more fervently than ever in her life before.

“Oh, God,” cried this loving heart, “forgive me, and save poor Tom! Thou knowest these sins I have