The young lawyer remained silent.
"Promise me," she pleaded tenderly, a tear stealing into her dark eyes.
"I'm going to do my level best for my old friend, Nan," he answered with dogged determination. "You needn't worry about your husband. He has the hide of a rhinoceros and nothing I can say will get under his skin."
"But that's just the trouble, Jim, it will. If any other man said it, no; but from you it will cut deeper than you can realize. You are the one man who can hurt him beyond forgiveness, because you're the one man on earth for whom he really cares."
"It will be all right, Nan. Men know how to give and take hard knocks and still be friends. We challenged each other to this duel when there was no other way."
"I never saw him so bent on any one thing in my life. His hatred of Woodman is a mania."
"I'm sorry—I'm fighting for my old friend's life. He wouldn't live in a prison a year. And I'm fighting for the life of his little girl who loves and believes in him as she believes in the goodness of God. If her father is branded a felon, it will kill her."
Nan tried to speak again and her voice failed. At last she said:
"Well, I'm going to sit where I can look straight into your face and if you say or do one thing that will destroy our friendship or ruin your future I shall scream—I know it!"
Stuart smiled and pressed her hand.