"Ray told me to give this note to no one but you, Mrs. Truscott, and I inferred that he wished you only to see it," said he.
To his surprise, she drew back her hand. Her lips began to quiver, her eyes to refill. She made no effort to take it. He looked at her wonderingly.
"Mr. Blake—I—I cannot take it. I cannot explain!" And then, abruptly turning, she rushed into the house and up the stairs.
Poor Blake stood one moment in dire perplexity and then went back.
"She wouldn't take it, Billy. She said she couldn't; but d—n me if I can fathom it."
Ray's eyes grew stony. Every vestige of color left his face. He covered it with his thin white hands, and the man who had braved death and torture to save his comrades, who had borne uncomplainingly, resolutely, patiently, the trying ordeal of his examination by a gang of suspicious men, who had suffered in silence the ignominy of a criminal charge rather than drag to light a defence that might involve a woman's name, now quivered and shuddered and turned to the wall with one low moan of agony, cut to the heart by the fragile hand he would have died to shield.