Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/114

92 The woman fell back upon the cushions, chalk-white and shuddering.

"You have answered me," Trant said quietly. He glanced at her pityingly, and as she shrank from him, he tingled with an unbidden sympathy for this beautiful woman. "But in spite of the fact that you never brought the boy back," Trant cried impetuously, "and in spite of—or rather because of all that is so dark against you, believe me that I expect to clear you before them all!" He glanced at his watch. "I am glad that you have been taking me toward your home, for it is almost time for my appointment with your husband."

The car was running on the street bounding the park on the west. It stopped suddenly before a great stone house, the second from the intersecting street.

Eldredge was running down the steps, and in a moment young Murray came after him. The husband opened the door of the limousine and helped his wife tenderly up the steps. Murray and Trant followed him together. Eldredge's second wife—though she could comprehend nothing of what lay behind Trant's assurance of help for her—met her husband's look with eyes that had suddenly grown bright. Murray stared from the woman to Trant with disapproval. He nodded to the psychologist to follow him into Eldredge's study on one side; but there he waited for his brother-in-law to return to voice his reproach.

"What have you been saying to her, Trant?" Eldredge demanded sternly as he entered and shut the door.

"Only what I told you this morning," the