“I know!” she said. “You think it's a woman's inconsistency. It isn't! I didn't know what you would do, I don't know now. But I have told you all. I have told you what I intend to do, if I possibly can. I had to tell you first. If I was to be honest all the way with myself, I had first of all to be honest with you. After that I was free. I don't know what you will do. I don't see what you can do now. But if you keep me from notifying the police to-night—there is to-morrow—and after that another to-morrow. No matter what happens, to you, or to me, I am going through with this. I”—her voice choked suddenly—“I have to.”
Dave Henderson straightened up.
“I believe you!” he said under his breath. “After what you've done, I'd be a fool if I didn't. And you're offering me a square fight, aren't you, Teresa?” He was laughing in that quiet, curious way again. “Well, I'm not sure I want to fight. Just before I found out that money was gone, I was wondering if I wouldn't give it back myself.”
“Dave!” It was the first time she had ever called him by his name, and it came now from her lips in a quick, glad cry. Her hands caught at both his arms. “Dave, do you mean that? Do you? Dave, it is true! You're honest, after all!”
He turned his head away, a sudden hard and bitter smile on his lips.
“No,” he said. “And I haven't made up my mind yet about giving it back, anyway. But maybe I had other reasons for even getting as far as I did. Not honesty. I can't kid, myself on that. I am a thief.”
Her fingers were gripping at his arms with all their strength, as though she were afraid that somehow he would elude and escape her.
“You were a thief”—it seemed as though her soul were in the passionate entreaty in her voice now—“and I was the daughter of a criminal, with all the hideous memories of crime and evil that stretch back to childhood. But that is in the past, Dave, if we will only leave it there, isn't it? It—it doesn't have to be that way in all the years that are coming. God gives us both a chance to—to make good. I'm going to take mine. Won't you take yours, Dave? You were a thief, but how about from now on?”
He stood rigid, motionless; and again his face was turned away from her out into the darkness.
“From now on.” He repeated the words in a low, wondering way.