“Don’t! Don’t!” he cried, and he sank a crumpled figure at his desk, and buried his face in his arms.
“Look up!” cried Katherine sternly.
“Wait!” he moaned. “Wait!”
She passed around the desk and firmly raised his shoulders.
“Look me in the eyes!”
He lifted a face that worked convulsively.
She stood accusingly before him. “Out with the truth!” she commanded in a rising voice. “In the presence of your wife, perhaps dying, and dying as the result of your act—in the presence of that old man, whom you have ruined with your word—do you still dare to maintain your innocence? Out with the truth, I say!”
He sprang to his feet.
“I can stand it no longer!” he gasped in an agony that went to Katherine’s heart. “It’s killing me! It’s been tearing me apart for months! What I have suffered—oh, what I have suffered! I’ll tell you all—all! Oh, let me get it off my soul!”
The desperation of his outburst, the sight of his fine face convulsed with uttermost agony and repentance, worked a sudden revulsion in Katherine’s heart. All her bitterness, her momentary sternness, rushed out of her, and there she was, quivering all over, hot tears in her eyes, gripping the hands of Elsie’s husband.