“Set things right? How?”
“Come forward, confess, and straighten out the situation of your own accord. Westville is in a terrible condition. If you act at once, you can at least do something to relieve it.”
“By setting things right, as you call it, you of course include the clearing of your father?”
“The clearing of my father, of course. And let me say to you, Mr. Blake—and for this moment I am speaking as your friend—that it will be better for you to clear this whole matter up voluntarily, at once, than to be exposed later, as you certainly will be. To clear this matter at once may have the result of simplifying the fight against the epidemic—it may save many lives. That is what I am thinking of first of all just now.”
“You mean to say, then, that it is either confess or be exposed?”
“There is no use in my beating about the bush with you,” she replied in her same steady tone. “For I know that you know that I am after you.”
He did not speak at once. He sat gazing fixedly at her, with twitching face. She met his gaze without blinking, breathlessly awaiting his reply.
Suddenly a tremor ran through him and his face set with desperate decision.
“Yes, I know you are after me! I know you are having me followed—spied upon!” There was a biting, contemptuous edge to his tone. “Even if I were guilty, do you think I would be afraid of exposure from you? Oh, I know the man you have sleuthing about on my trail. Elijah Stone! And I once thought you were a clever girl!”
“You refuse, then?” she said slowly.