Susan remembered the horrible part of her cousin's sex revelations. "Oh, no!" she cried. "I wouldn't have let him do that—even if he had wanted to. No—not even if we'd been married."
"You see, Warham!" cried Mr. Wright, in triumph.
"I see a liar!" was Warham's furious answer. "She's trying to defend him and make out a case for herself."
"I am telling the truth," said Susan.
Warham gazed unbelievingly at her, speechless with fury. Mr. Wright took his silk hat from the corner of the piano. "I'm satisfied they're innocent," said he. "So I'll take my boy and go."
"Not if I know it!" retorted Warham. "He's got to marry her."
"But the girl says she's pure, says he never spoke of marriage, says he begged her not to run away. Be reasonable, Warham."
"For a good Christian," sneered he at Wright, "you're mighty easily convinced by a flimsy lie. In your heart you know the boy has wronged her and that she's shielding him, just as——" There Warham checked himself; it would be anything but timely to remind Wright of the character of the girl's mother.
"I'll admit," said Mr. Wright smoothly, "that I wasn't overanxious for my boy's marriage with a girl whose mother was—unfortunate. But if your charge had been true, Warham, I'd have made the boy do her justice, she being only seventeen. Come, Sam."
Sam slunk toward the door. Warham stared fiercely at the elder
Wright. "And you call yourself a Christian!" he sneered.