Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/66

 you all the truth, Mr. Clarke. He didn't go to his room, like he said he did and I said, too. That was a lie I told to try to help him. A lot of good it did, when they got us apart! What he did was to leave the building and go down toward the lake. I saw him, for I followed him out of the building and down the street—part way."

She stopped with a catch of breath, as she gazed in Calvin's face; panic filled her with the idea that, trusting to this man who had come in the name of the people of Illinois, two of whom were Ket and she, now she had flung Ket's life away.

"That is the truth?" Calvin asked her.

"That's the truth," she gasped.

"I will call Denson to hear it and to record it," Calvin said. "You understand that your statement may be used against you or against Ketlar in court."

"I understand it; but I want to tell it just to you, now. I've been talking to them; I've seen them putting down what I say. There's no use telling the truth to them. But I thought—I think there may be, to you!"

"Go on," Calvin bid; but she denied, in panic, "That's all." So he had to drive her. "No; that is not all. Where did he go, besides 'toward the lake'?"

"He turned the corner."

"Which way—toward his wife's flat or away from it?"

She longed to lie; she yearned to cry, "Away!" But she had cast Ket's fate upon the truth and she replied, "Toward." And she saw the set of satisfaction in the face of the man who had come for the State.

"Exactly," he said. "You saw him go into the flat?"

"No; I didn't. I don't know that he went there at all. I don't know that he didn't go, either, Mr. Clarke! But I do know this—when Adele was being shot, Ket was here with me! Here by the radio! It was going then, Mr. Clarke. Dads—my father—he'd come in. He was