"Then Rupert is crazy? Gerard told the truth? Speak out! Are you afraid or sulky?"
This time the lash took effect. Corrie moved sharply and spoke.
"I am not going to talk," he declared definitely. "Nor ought you to ask it of me, sir. If you don't know how I loved Allan Gerard, if you can't feel that I would rather have killed myself than hurt him and would have turned my car against a stone wall sooner than see to-day, there is no use of my saying it. I don't care what anyone thinks or says. I stood the worst that can come to me when I helped his surgeons to-day and heard him clear me——I'm going to my room; you needn't fear I'll run away."
Mr. Rose was across the room before his son could leave it, gripping the satin-clad shoulder.
"You'll keep what Gerard lied to give you," he promised with inexorable menace. "And that's what is left of your reputation. You'll neither run nor skulk in your room; you'll go dress for dinner and come down here and eat it. We'll have no scenes. The medicine you have got to take is nothing to the black dose Gerard has to swallow."
"Papa!" Flavia appealed, unheard.
"Yes, sir," Corrie answered simply.
On the wide landing of the staircase Flavia overtook her brother. There was just one thing she could say to him, must and would always have to say whatever his faults or the rest of the world's condemnation.
"I love you," she panted, clasping her little hands around his arm. "Corrie, it is hurting you so! I love you, let me come."
Under the soft hall-lights he turned to her, blue eyes meeting blue eyes; then for the first time in their lives he took her in his arms with a man's touch and kissed her.