"Sit down, Pete—sit down!" she said sharply. "You have to tell me what's on your mind. I'm with Reese in this fight against Macgowan. Tell me, at once."
Slosson dropped into a chair. Her incisive words seemed to shatter his indecision. He broke out into a petulant flood of speech.
"Damn it, Dot, how can I tell you? There are things you don't know, never did know, must not know! I don't want to tell you—yet, if I don't reach Reese, it means jail! Can't you see the position I'm in? If I tell you the truth, I'm bound to hurt you deeply; and I don't want to do that. If I don't tell you, if I don't get this message to Reese—it's jail for him."
His mental despair, his torturing uncertainty, lay written in his face.
"Jail!" repeated Dorothy, low-voiced. Slosson made a gesture of assent, and dropped his chin on his breast. From beneath lowered lids, he was watching keenly, however.
Dorothy's first impulse was to bid him go, leave his message unspoken. If Reese actually had any dark secret which had been carefully kept from her knowledge, she did not wish to know it.
The impulse was checked. What had this to do with Macgowan, with Ried Williams? The thought was as a goad to her spirit. She leaned forward again to speak. As Slosson glanced up, he met her eyes full. Her blue-steel gaze was so imperative, so penetrating, that the man gave an involuntary start.
"Tell me the whole thing, Pete," she ordered swiftly. "I have a right to know. Out with it!"
Slosson gestured despairingly.
"I'll have to," he muttered. "Reese is going to be indicted in Illinois—perhaps has been indicted by now. He must act at once to save himself."