"O papa, you will help me! You must help me!" she cried. "Oh, make them tell you all so that you may help me!"
"They have told me—your mother has told me, Alice," he answered, seeking in vain to release himself from the frantic grasp of her arms.
"Then you will make Geoffrey understand," she returned, almost angrily. "You will make Geoffrey understand that it was not my fault—that I couldn't help it."
Richard Ordway turned from the window, through which he had been looking, and taking her fingers, which were closed in a vice-like pressure about Daniel's arm, pried them forcibly apart.
"Look at me, Alice," he said sternly, "and answer the question that I asked you. What did you say to Geoffrey when he spoke to you in the lawyer's presence? Did you deny, then, that you had signed the check? Don't struggle so, I must hear what you told them."
But she only writhed in his hold, straining her arms and her neck in the direction of Daniel.
"He was very cruel," she replied at last, "they were both very cruel. I don't know what I said, I was so frightened. Geoffrey hurt me terribly—he hurt me terribly," she whimpered like a child, and as she turned toward Daniel, he saw her bloodless gum, from which her lower lip had quivered and dropped.
"I must know what you told them, Alice," repeated the old man in an unmoved tone. "I can do nothing to help you, if you will not speak the truth." Even when her body struggled in his grasp, no muscle altered in the stern face he bent above her.
"Let me go," she pleaded passionately, "I want to go to papa! I want papa!"
At her cry Daniel made a single step forward, and then fell back because the situation seemed at the moment in the command of Richard. Again he felt the curious respect, the confidence, with which his uncle inspired him in critical moments.