"Barbara," he met the eyes of the girl in the chair unflinchingly, "you told me last night that the only words I ever could speak to you would be in the way of an apology. Will you hear one now? I'm ready to make it. Talk doesn't count much; but I'm going the limit to put Worth Gilbert's release through."
There was a long silence, Barbara looking at him quite unmoved. Behind that steady gaze lay the facts that Worth Gilbert's life and honor had been threatened by this man's course; that she herself was only alive because the bullet of that criminal whom his action unconsciously shielded missed its aim by an inch: Worth's life, her life, their love and all that might mean—and Barbara had eyes you could read—I didn't envy Cummings as he faced her. Finally she said quietly,
"I'll accept your apology, Mr. Cummings, when Worth is free."
CHAPTER XXX
A CONFESSION
In the dingy office of the city prison, with its sand boxes and barrel stove, its hacked old desks, dusty books and papers, I watched Bronson Vandeman, and wondered to see how the man I had known played in and out across his face with the man Edward Clayte, whom I had tried to imagine, whom nobody could describe.
Helping to recover Clayte's loot for Worth Gilbert looked to the opposition their best bet for squaring themselves. Dykeman from his sick bed, had dug us up a stenographer; Cummings had climbed out of his tin clothes and come along with us to the jail. They wanted the screws put on; but I intended to handle Vandeman in my own way. I had halted the lawyer on the lock-up threshold, with,
"Cummings, I want you to keep still in here. When I'm done with the man, you can question him all you want—if he's left anything to be told." I answered a doubtful look, "Did you see his face there in the ball room as he looked up at Barbara Wallace? He thinks that girl knows everything, like a supreme being. He's still so shaken that he'd spill out anything—everything. He'll hardly suppose he's telling us anything we don't know."