Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/343

 moment when she entered the office and Jen Cordeen stayed out and shut the door, Marjorie wanted to imagine Gregg yet as he had been, not knowing; and then she realized that, if he were so, she would have to tell him.

But he knew; his first tone, "Hello, Marjorie," made it as perfectly plain to her as hers, "Oh, Gregg, where are you?" made it plain to him that she knew.

"I'm with Bill, Marjorie," he told her then.

"Gregg, I want to come there."

"I'm coming back to town now; I want to come to you. No one can do any good here, Marjorie; the authorities—you understand they have to keep him where he is for a while. I've learned how it all happened; let me come there and tell you, Marjorie. I've got a car and I'll be right in; you'll wait there for me, won't you?"

"Oh, Gregg," she cried, "Gregg; Gregg." And she understood after a moment when his voice was gone that it was because he was coming; and she ran up to her room where she threw herself on her bed and received, at last, a merciful relief.

She was by her window when he arrived and she went down to the inner door as he entered; she seized his hands, cold and damp as her own were; his eyes came to hers. "He's not marked," Gregg told her first. "He lies—as if he were asleep."

"Yes," she said. "Yes; I wanted to know that."

Jen Cordeen had left the office open for them and empty; and the day bed, upon which she slept, had been made up as a couch. Marjorie and Gregg went in and closed the door.

He had on his blue suit and with it a black tie; he