"Of course not. I don't know where he is. He has not been near me since—since the day before—" She spoke rapidly, jerkily, and did not deem it necessary to complete the sentence.
George had the delicacy to hesitate. He even weighed, in that brief instant, the advisability of saying what he had come to say to her. Then a queer sense of duty, of brother to sister, took the place of doubt. She was his sister and she needed him now as never before, needed him now despite his self-admitted worthlessness.
"See here, Anne, I'm going to speak plainly," he blurted out, leaning forward. "You must not see Brady Thorpe again. If he comes here, you must refuse to receive him."
Her eyes were very dark and lustreless against the increased pallor of her cheeks. "He will not come here, George," she said, scarcely above a whisper. She moistened her lips. "It isn't necessary to—to warn me."
"Mind you, I don't say a word against him," he made haste to explain. "It's what people will say that troubles me. Perhaps you don't know what they are going to say, Anne, but I do."
"Oh, I know what they will say," she muttered. She looked straight into his eyes. "They will say that he killed his grandfather—purposely."
"It doesn't matter that they say he killed his grandfather, Anne," said he slowly, "so much as that he killed your husband. That's the point."
"What have you heard, George?" she asked, in dread of his reply.
"Barely enough to let me understand that where one man is talking now, a hundred will be talking next week. There was a young doctor up there in the operating room. He doesn't say it in so many words, but he suspects that it wasn't an accidental slip of the—don't look like that, Anne! Gee, you looked awfully scary just then." He wiped his brow. "I—I thought you were about to faint. I say, we'll drop the matter this instant if—"
"I'm not going to faint," she exclaimed. "You need not be afraid. What is it that this young doctor says? And how do you happen to have heard—"