"Jimmy!" and Eleanor laughed a little, bitter laugh, which had a trace of contempt in it. "Pshaw! Jimmy's love affairs don't count now. I think he feels that, too. After all, there is a trace of our mother's temper in him if one can awaken it."
She turned and looked at her brother, who closed one hand tightly. "Oh, I know; the girl has graciously condescended to smile on you, and no doubt you are almost astonished, as well as grateful, that she should go so far. Still, where did the money that made her a dainty lady of station come from? Must I tell you that a second time, Jimmy?"
She stopped a moment, and gripped the paper hard in firm white fingers. "This is mine. I bought it. You know what it cost me, Charley; and what has Jimmy done in comparison with that? Do you think anything would induce me to spare Merril now that I have this in my hands?"
Jimmy looked up sharply, and saw the flush of color in her cheek, and that the blood had crept into his comrade's face. His own grew suddenly hot.
"Ah!" he said, with a thrill of anger in his voice, "I begin to understand. She got the information you acted on out of that brute, Carnforth. You knew that, Charley, and you—you countenanced it."
He half rose from his seat with a brown hand stretched out as if to tear the paper from the girl, but while Jordan swung around toward him Eleanor laughed.
"Sit down," she said imperiously, "you simple-minded fool! Do you think I would let Charley's opinion influence me in an affair of this kind?"
Jordan made a gesture of resignation. "She would not," he said. "That's the simple fact. But go on, Eleanor—or shall I tell him? Anyway, it must be done."
The girl silenced him, and though the next two or three minutes were, perhaps, as unpleasant as any Jimmy had ever spent in his life, it was with a certain deep relief that he heard his sister out. Before she stopped she held up a white hand.
"Once," she said, "once only, he held my wrist. That was all, Jimmy; but I feel it left a mark. If it could be removed that way, I would burn it out. Now you know what the thing cost me—but I did it."