She tried to speak.
He strode across his threshold and laid his hand tenderly on her frail shoulder, and without a word gently led her into his room.
“Mr. Crane,” she faltered, fighting to control herself, “I—I am in great trouble.”
Enoch led her to his chair, went back, closed his door, and waited for her to grow calmer.
“You would not have come to me unless you were in great trouble,” he ventured at length, in a kindly way, breaking the silence. “Your—your sister is—er—is not worse?” he asked.
Miss Ann shook her head.
“What, then?” he insisted firmly, seating himself quietly beside her. “You’ve had a shock, Miss Moulton. Won’t you be frank with me?”
For a moment she buried her face in her hands and a low moan escaped her trembling lips. Then in a voice so hesitating, so painful, that he dared not interrupt her, she told him the whole pitiful story—of Ebner Ford’s visit, of his persuading her to invest half of all she and her sister possessed in the world in his wringer stock, of his glowing eulogy over the Household Gem’s selling qualities, and old Mrs. Miggs’s good fortune, of those tragic moments when she had listened on the stairs to the lawyer’s denunciation, and of her fears for her money in the hands of a man she had trusted implicitly, and who had been openly denounced as an embezzler.
Through all this painful, halting confession, Enoch did not open his lips, his keen sense as a lawyer keeping him silent until her final words, “What am I to do?” left her mute and trembling, with a look in her eyes of positive terror.
Enoch rose with a deep sigh, a strange, hard glitter in his eyes, and stood before her, his strong hands clasped behind his back.