"You're drunker than I thought!" sneered Kate.
"If it wasn't true, d'you suppose he'd be paying me to keep still about it?"
"Pay you to keep still about his not being a thief! And you want me to believe that too?" Kate laughed with contempt. Then she inquired solicitously: "Would you like a bucket of water over you to sober you a bit?"
At this moment the hall door opened and David entered the room. He paused in astonishment. "What's the matter?" he asked sharply.
The two had turned at his entrance, and, their faces ablaze with anger, were now glaring at him. Kate was the first to speak, and her words tingled with her wrath.
"Nothing. Only this charming lady friend of yours—don't come too near her breath!—has been telling me that you didn't take the money from the Mission—that Mr. Morton did—that she got it—that you're paying her not to tell that you're innocent."
The colour slowly faded from David's face. He held his eyes a moment on Kate's infuriate figure, and then he gazed at Lillian Drew. She gazed back at him defiantly, but the thought that her betrayal of the secret might cut off her supplies began to cool her anger. David thought only of the one great fact that the truth had at last come out; and finally he exclaimed, almost stupidly, more in astoundment than wrath:
"So this's how you've kept it secret!"
Kate paled. Her eyes widened and her lips fell apart. She caught herself against her desk and stared at him.
"So—it's the truth!" she whispered with dry lips.