"Is that answer final?" he said hoarsely.
"Never!" she reiterated.
"Remember!" he said. "In that word you pronounce the doom of this lad; by that word you let fall the sword, you darken the few remaining years of an old man's life with shame!"
White and breathless she sank on to the floor and so knelt—absolutely knelt—to him, with outstretched hands and imploring eyes.
He looked at her, his heart beating, his lips quivering, and his hand moved toward the bell.
"If I ring this it is to send for a constable. If I ring this, it is to give this lad into custody on a charge of forgery. It is impossible for him to escape, the evidence is complete and damning."
His hand touched the bell, had almost pressed it, when Stella uttered a word.
"Stay!" she said, and so hoarse, so unnatural was the sound of her voice, that it went to his heart like a stab.
Slowly, with the movement of a person numbed and almost unconscious, she rose and came toward him.
Her face was white, white to the lip, her eyes fixed not on him, but beyond him; she had every appearance of one moving in a dream.