"Your work?" he repeated.
She nodded, with a little sigh. "I am a typist," she said. "You know what that means,—genteel starvation, long hours, gray days. Never mind, I am almost used to it."
"You need be a typist no longer unless you choose," he said. "Part of what I promised to your brother belongs to you."
She shook her head. "Don't speak of it!" she exclaimed. "I should feel that it was blood money."
"At least let me hear from you sometimes," he said. "Don't let me lose sight of you altogether while your brother is unable to help you."
She hesitated. Then, lifting her eyes to his, "I don't believe," she said softly, "that you would tell me anything that was not true."
"I don't believe that I should," he answered.
"Then tell me this," she said, "honestly. When you made my brother that offer, when you sent him to deal with this man Sinclair, can you tell me that you had not an idea in your mind that he might be led on to do something rash?"
Deane hesitated. He was not a man of over-strict scruples, but he hated lies. Somehow or other, it seemed to him impossible to look at this girl and tell her anything that was not the truth.
"I am not altogether sure," he answered. "At the back of my head there was just the idea that your brother was desperate, that he would gain what he wanted, somehow or other."