Uncle George looked from mother to Ernie in blank amazement. “Do you mean to say she won’t tell?” he demanded. “Then there is only one way out of it. She must be made to.”
“I shall try to show Ernie that it is the only way in which she can be of any help to Geoffrey,” answered mother, quietly.
Uncle George frowned impatiently.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll give her a five-dollar gold piece for the first bit of information she has to give us. What’s more, I’ll make it twenty-five dollars, if it leads to Geoffrey’s capture before night. What do you say to that, my girl?”
It would be impossible to describe the look of horror depicted in Ernie’s features. Betray Geof, her dear chum, her more than brother, for a sordid money reward! If Uncle George had only known it, our last chance of winning Ernie was lost when he uttered those hateful words. But he did not know, and it would have been impossible to make him understand. On the contrary, he picked up his hat with a satisfied expression of having set things on the right track, at last, and after a final injunction “to keep him informed,” left us.
Mother and I looked hopelessly at one another as the front door closed behind him.
“Ernie, dear,” said mother, very gently, “setting aside all thought of Uncle George’s offer, for, of course, it is out of the question that you should accept any money,—I expect you to tell me at once all you know in regard to Geoffrey’s plans. It may be the means of saving him great hardship, and discomfort.”
“Yes, Ernie,” I urged. “And everybody is agreed that it is much better to break a bad promise than to keep it. Doesn’t your own common-sense tell you that?”
But reason, command, entreat as we might, Ernie remained obdurate.
She sat on the top stair leading down to the basement, the big tears welling in her blue eyes and trickling along her nose till they dropped from the tip with a little splash into her lap; listening plaintively to all we said, replying nothing,—a moving picture of stubborn misery.