He caught his breath.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Mrs. Balfame."
"And yet you accuse me of letting her lie in prison bearing the burden of my crime?"
"As the only way to possess her ultimately."
"And how many, may I ask, are saying that I am in love with my client?"
"Not a soul—save, possibly, Alys to herself. She doesn't seem to have much enthusiasm for the Star of Elsinore. Provincial people are too funny for words. Maybe we New Yorkers are also provincial in our tendency to forget there is any other America. I intend to cultivate the open mind; a writer must, I think. So you see just how in earnest I am. Don't you believe you could trust me? All the world knows that a newspaper person is the safest depository on earth for a secret."
"Oh, I have the most touching confidence in your honour, and the most profound admiration for your candour, and the deepest sympathy for ambitions so natural to one afflicted with genius. I am only wondering whether if I gave you the information you seem to need you would permit Mrs. Balfame to remain in jail and stand trial for her life."
"You are not to laugh at me! Yes, I should. Because I know that she has ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to get off, and that if she were condemned you would come forward at once and tell the truth."
"And you really believe I did it?" His hands were in his pockets, and he was balancing himself on his heels. There was certainly nothing tense about his tall loose figure, but the light of the street lamp, filtered through a low branch, threw shadows on his face that made it look pallid and as darkly hollowed as the face of an elderly actress in a moving picture. To Miss Sarah Austin he looked like a guilty man engaged in the honourable art of bluffing, but her mounting irritation precluded pity.