"You don't deserve to be told, you are so impatient; but I will tell you this once. I was about to add that it seems to be an accepted fact that Sybil sacrificed herself to save Evan from some sort of exposure and disgrace. And they say that some of those rough men in a saloon threw the thing in Evan's teeth, and that he replied in his odd way:
"'Yes, she did it for my sake, and now the first man of you that mentions my sister's name in my hearing will go under.' You know they are afraid of Evan in his rages."
Constance opened her mouth impulsively, but she choked back the words that rushed forward for utterance, and closing her lips tightly, sat staring straight before her, a strange expression creeping into her face.
She seemed to hear anew Evan's words: "Do your part, I will do mine. I, Evan Lamotte, worthless, black sheep, sot; I will find a reason that will not be questioned, and that will spare Sybil."
And he had found a reason. The black sheep was offered up a sacrifice. Evan Lamotte had flung away his last rag of respectability for his sister's sake. Henceforth he would appear in the eyes of the people doubly blackened, doubly degraded, the destroyer of his sister's happiness, the blight upon her life, and yet, he was innocent of this; he was a martyr; he the ne'er-do-well, the inebriate.
Constance was strangely moved by this self-sacrifice, coming from one who was so morally weak; if it had been Frank, but here her lip curled contemptuously; instinctively she knew that such self-sacrifice was not in Frank's nature, any more than was such self-abandonment to weakness. Constance began to wonder if Frank and his parents knew the truth. If they had permitted the weakest shoulders to bear the burden; or, if Evan had deceived them too, and then she murmured, almost in the language of the tramp detective:
"It's a thing for time to unravel. It's a play just begun. It's a hard, hard knot."
And, then and there, she took Sybil and Evan to her generous heart of hearts, and mentally resolved to be their champion and friend to the uttermost, while she would judge their parents and their brother according as these dealt by the unfortunates.
It was many days before she saw Evan, for, although in true woman fashion, she longed to scold him first for so sacrificing himself, and praise him after for his generous true heartedness, she knew that he would only be distressed by such an interview, and would obey a summons from her reluctantly if at all.
But one day, just as she was driving her ponies out through the gates of Wardour Place, she saw a horseman riding furiously up the road, and a nearer view revealed Frank Lamotte's fine horse and mounted by Evan.