"Ah, there you were wrong!" she said quickly. "So many years! And now--"
"Now I must go and see if there is any way to gather up the broken fragments."
"Could I not help in some way? May I not go with you?" she asked simply.
"You would do that?" he demanded.
"Anywhere," she answered.
He lifted her fingers to his lips and hid their trembling upon her white hand. "No, you cannot go," he said, with a break in his voice.
"Then I will wait for you here," she said.
"Oh, my God!" he breathed.
We came to our senses then, and Mrs. Whyte swept us out into the hall with one wave of her matronly arm. They must have that moment of complete understanding to themselves. We hovered at the foot of the stairs, waiting to speak again with Clyde, yet too upset in our minds to have any clear idea of what we could suggest or needed to ask. Mrs. Whyte, in a surge of emotion, caught Jean to her buxom bosom,--against which the child looked like a star-flower on a brocaded silk hillock. Jean's eyes were shining,--and not her eyes alone; her whole face was alight with a tender radiance.
Whyte gripped my shoulder to turn my attention. "See here, Hilton, he mustn't run away. It would look like guilt. You must tell him, as a lawyer, that it would be the worst thing he could do. If he is innocent, the law will protect him,--"