George Tresslyn, white-faced and awed, sat like a graven image, looking at the floor. He was not there because he wanted to be, but because a rather praiseworthy allegiance to Anne had mastered his repugnance. Somewhere in his benumbed intelligence flickered a spark of light which revealed to him his responsibility as the head of the family. Anne was his sister. She was lovely. He would have liked to be proud of her. If it were not for the millions of that old man upstairs he could have been proud of her, and by an odd reasoning, even more ashamed of himself than he was now. He was not thinking of the Thorpe millions, however, as he sat there brooding; he was not wondering what Anne would do for him when she had her pay in hand. He was dumbly praising himself for having refused to sell his soul to Templeton Thorpe in exchange for the fifty thousand dollars with which the old man had baited him on three separate occasions, and wishing that Lutie could know. It was something that she would have to approve of in him! It was rather pitiful that he should have found a grain of comfort in the fact that he had refused to kill a fellow man!
Anne took several turns up and down the room. There was a fine line between her dark, brooding eyes, and her nostrils were distended as if breathing had become difficult for her.
"I told him once that if such a thing ever happened to me, I'd put an end to myself just as soon as I knew," she said, addressing no one, but speaking with a distinctness that was startling. "I told him that one would be justified in taking one's life under such circumstances. Why should one go on suffering—"
"What are you saying, Anne?" broke in her mother sharply. George looked up, astonishment struggling to make its way through the dull cloud on his face.
Anne stopped short. For a moment she appeared to be dazed. She went paler than before, and swayed. Her brother started up from his chair, alarmed.
"I say, Anne old girl, get hold of yourself!" he exclaimed. "None of that, you know. You mustn't go fainting or anything like that. Walk around with me for a couple of minutes. You'll be all right in—"
"Oh, I'm not going to faint," she cried, but grasped his arm just the same.
"They always walked us around on the football field when we got woozy—"
"Go out and see if you can find out anything, George," said she, pulling herself together. "Surely it must be over by this time."
"Simmy's on the lookout," said George. "He'll let us know."