“It’s an obligation you have incurred!” Mr. Morton drove at her. “It’s your duty to fulfill it!”
“My duty!” Her eyes grew wide, and she shivered. Her wide eyes remained fastened in their sickly stare upon Mr. Morton’s grim mandatory face; she was thinking, weighing the wide alternatives of life; influenced perhaps by the new point Mr. Morton had made, but not influenced by his attempted dominance.
“My duty!” she breathed again. Then the life seemed to flow out of her. Her straight, slender body drooped and swayed, but a hand clutching the back of a gilt chair held her up. “Very well,” she said in a thin dry whisper. And then: “Very well—if you’ll let me tell Jack all I’ve told you, and if Jack then still wants me.”
“You mustn’t tell him!” cried Mr. Morton sharply. “Even your hold on him is precarious. Telling him might ruin everything. Why, I guess you’d better not even let him know that I know. Take him back to the Mordona—be Mr. and Mrs. Grayson for the present—pretend to be working toward a reconciliation with me. Keep everything a secret until Jack is established.”
She smiled. The irony of it! How circumstances had reversed their positions: here was Mr. Morton urging almost the same arguments for secrecy that she had formerly used upon herself!
It had been a very little smile. She was instantly sober.
“Very well—I’ll keep it secret and I’ll do what I can,” she said.
Clifford gazed at her heavily, a great, numb pain where his heart was. Then he slowly turned to Lieutenant Kelly.
“Let ’em all go, Jimmie,” he said briefly. “A pinch means publicity, and publicity is just what this situation doesn’t require.”
Jimmie removed the handcuffs and the three went out, Bradley glowering vengeance as he passed. “There’ll be a next time, you bet!” he growled. Clifford made no reply.