"MacNutt!" ejaculated the listening woman.
"Yes, MacNutt! He compromised with Penfield and swung in with him when the district-attorney started pounding at them both. The second man is a lawyer named Keenan, who was disbarred for conspiracy in the Brayton divorce case. Keenan and his papers are due at Genoa on Friday. I found some of this out on board the yacht. I thought it over—and it was the only way open for me. I couldn't stand out against it all, any longer. I thought I could make the plunge, without your ever knowing it—and perhaps get enough to keep you out of any more messes like this!"
"You had given me up?" she cried, reprovingly.
"No—no—no—I'd only given up waiting for chances to find you. My God, don't you suppose I knew you needed me!"
"It would have been too late!" she said, in her dead voice. "It's too late, already!"
"Then you don't care?" he demanded, almost brokenly.
"I'll never complain, or whine, again!" she answered with dreary listlessness.
"Then why are you in this room?"
"I mean that I've given up myself. I'm in it, now, as deep as you! I couldn't fight it back any longer—it had to come!"
"But why, and how! Why don't you explain?"