Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/255

 "Where are your guns? what has become of your manhood?" she asked him. "There's a man's way out of a thing like this, without coming to a woman to drag you out!"

"Will it be enough, if that much doesn't suffice you, to tell you that he can bring sorrow and disgrace to us all? Woe and desolation he can bring upon us, and you, least of all, can escape it! Is that enough?"

Nearing came toward her as she drew away from him, so passionate in his half confession of some terrible thing, some crime, some transgression, she knew not what name to give it, that had bound him in such despicable servitude.

"No," she said; "no, no!"

"If duty, if compassion, if the thought of me and mine, my name, my honorable past"

"Honorable past!" she mocked him, like a taunting echo.

"If the misery of your Aunt Hope, if the earnest appeal that I make to you, I, a man that has stood equal to and above princes and potentates—if all this is not enough"

"It is not enough! Until you're man enough to tell me what it is this thief knows, and leave me to judge for myself, I'll"

"I can't tell you!" Nearing groaned, sinking again to his chair. "Alma, I can't tell you!" Then, stiffening in a moment, shored by the memory of his past consequence, "You are not my confessor, I'm under no obligation to reveal my—business affairs to you!"

"No, you are under no obligation to me at all,"