"There!" she said, voice falling to a whisper.
Then, turning her face half from him, she whispered so low that he heard her with difficulty: "I wish I were dead!"
Her words frightened him, they had so clearly the ring of truth, as if she would in sober fact have preferred death to the thought which was breaking her heart—suspicion of her father.
"That was why Berne stopped the judge's outcry," she said at last, turning her white face to him; "he had the sudden wild idea that I'm afraid you have—that father might have killed her. And Berne did not want that awful fact screamed through the night at me. Oh, can't you see—can't you see that, Mr. Hastings?"
"It's entirely possible; Mr. Webster may have thought that.—But let's keep the story straight. What had your father said about Mildred Brace—to arouse any such suspicion?"
"He was angry, terribly indignant. You know I made no secret to you of his high temper. His rages are fierce.—Once, when he was that way, I saw him kill a dog. If it had—but I think all men who're unstrung nervously, as he is, have high tempers. He felt so indignant because she had come between Berne and myself. He blamed neither Berne nor me. He seemed to concentrate all his anger upon her.
"He said—you see, Mr. Hastings, I tell you everything!—he threatened to go to her and—— He had, of course, no definite idea what he would do. Finally, he did say he would buy her off, pay her to leave this part of the country. After that, he said, he knew I would 'see things clearly,' and Berne and I would be reconciled."
Hastings remembered Russell's assertion that Mildred had her ticket to Chicago.
"Did he buy her off?" he asked quickly.
"Oh, no; he was merely wishing that he could, I think."