Guest caught the hand she extended with her purse and Edie’s, kissed it reverently, and closed the fingers tightly round the purses, and gently thrust them from him.
“What!” Myra cried passionately; “you refuse?”
“I want to help you both,” he replied gravely.
“O Percy!” cried Edie, with the tears starting to her eyes, and her tone of reproach thrilled him.
“Don’t speak to me like that,” he said. “You mean well, but to do what you say is to condemn him at once in everybody’s sight. It is all so foreign to my poor friend’s nature that, even knowing what I do, I cling to the belief in his innocence.”
“Yes; he must be innocent,” cried Myra. “He could not be what you say.”
“Then should I be right in taking money and your message, saying to him, though not in words—‘Fly for your life, like a hunted criminal’? I could not do it. Myra, Edie—think, pray, what you are urging. It would be better advice to him to say—‘Give yourself up, and let a jury of your fellow-countrymen decide.’”
“No, no,” cried Myra; “it is too horrible. You do not know; you cannot see what he is suffering—what his position is. I must act myself. It cannot, it cannot be true!”
“Myra!” whispered Edie, clinging to her.
“What? And you side against me, too?”