Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/89

 behind him; at his side, when he stepped back, he saw the stenographer, Eller, obediently busy with his pencil. Calvin Clarke resumed his previous position before his prisoner.

"That is what you wanted to tell me this morning?"

"No," she gasped. "I didn't know I was going to say it. That—that ran away with me, Mr. Clarke! Don't hurt Ket because of me! You can kill Ket, can't you? Or let him free?"

"I can't kill any one, in the sense that I can convict him, if he is not guilty," Calvin corrected. "His own acts and his own admissions accuse him."

"Admissions?" she caught at the word. "Ket hasn't confessed!"

Calvin turned from her without reply; and she was at his side, plucking at his sleeve. "What have you got from him?" she begged.

"Never mind," said Calvin.

"Nothing!" she asserted, releasing him. "Bluffing! That's all you were doing. Bluffing!"

"I did not mean by admissions that he had confessed," Calvin denied, coldly. "Yet he has made admissions."

"What?"

"Do you want to see him now?"

"Oh, haven't I been asking it?"

"I will arrange it," said Calvin, and, nodding to Eller to accompany him, he went out.

In the hall he put out his hand for Eller's book and asked, "Where did you start with your notes in that room?"

Crumpling the pages which the stenographer indicated, Calvin tore them out and thrust them into his pocket.

Joan Daisy returned to her table where she poured a cup of coffee and drank it, unsweetened and black.