“I fear I have felt rather more than I have thought,” returned Brian.
She nodded. “Yes, I know; but feeling alone never arrives anywhere. An excess of thoughtless feeling is sheer emotional extravagance. I sound like a book, don't I?” she laughed. “It is so just the same, Mr. Burns. And now that you have—ah—been properly—not to say gloriously—extravagant at poor Judy's expense, we had better do a little thinking, don't you think?”
The man's cheeks reddened at her words; but the straightforward, downright sincerity of those gray eyes, that looked so frankly into his, held him steady; while the interrogation at the end of her remark carried its usual conviction.
“There is only one possible thing left for me to do, Miss Williams,” he said earnestly.
“And what is that?” A smile that sent a glow of courage to Brian Kent's troubled heart accompanied the flat question.
“I can't face Auntie Sue again, knowing what I know now.” He spoke with passion.
“Of course you would expect to feel that way, wouldn't you?” came the matter-of-fact answer.
“The only thing I can do,” he continued, “is to give myself up, and go to the penitentiary; arranging, somehow, to do it in such a way that the reward will go to Auntie Sue. God knows she deserves it! Sheriff Knox would help me fix that part, I am sure.”
For a moment there was a suspicious moisture in Betty Jo's gray eyes. Then she said, “And you would really go to prison for Auntie Sue?”
“It is the least I can do for her now,” he returned.