"I am taking you to your home, and to-morrow your friends will know that you have returned. But you're not to tell them about the house where they have kept you. You must not tell them about Silva or anybody that was in that house. Do you understand?"
"But why?" she began, and he laughed softly.
"I am not trying to shield them," he said, answering her unspoken thought, "but if you give information you can only tell a little, and the police can only discover a little, and the men can only be punished a little. And there's so much that they deserve, so many lives they have ruined, so much sorrow they have caused, that it would be a hideous injustice if they were only punished—a little. Will you leave them to me?"
She struggled to an erect position and stared at him.
"I know you," she whispered fearlessly; "you are Jack o' Judgment."
"Jack o' Judgment!" he laughed a little bitterly. "Yes, I am Jack o' Judgment."
"Who are you?" she asked.
"A living lie," he replied bitterly, "a masquerader, a mummer, a nobody."
She did not know what impelled her to do the thing, but she put out her hand and laid it on his. She felt the silky smoothness of the glove and then his other hand covered hers.