“Come, Mr. Ray,” she said quickly, darting into the room. “Come away before you break down altogether! That man’s words should not annoy you—he is beneath your notice!”
The lawyer glared at her, but did not recognize her for a moment, while Dr. Brookes and the warden looked on in intense amazement.
“How dare you speak like that, miss?” said Augustus Atherton, hotly.
Marion turned and faced him with a look of indignation.
“I dare, because I know I am right,” she said, distinctly. “With your own daughter an outcast, a disgrace to her mother and to her husband, you do not hesitate to flatter and mislead young girls, or to compromise and wrong them if occasion offers!”
The lawyer’s pale face flushed with shame at her words, and just then Dr. Brookes stepped forward and led her from the office.
“Well said, beautiful Marion!” he whispered, softly. “And said at a time that he will not forget in a hurry! I fancy he will hesitate before he smiles at another young innocent!”
“You must cheer poor Mr. Ray,” was the fair girl’s only answer, “for while, of course, if is impossible that he should still love his wife, yet there must be memories that make this scene most bitter!”
“I will do my best,” said Reginald Brookes, nobly. He had forgotten for the time that this man was his rival.
Marion hurried back to the hospital. She had done her duty. She went at once to the Superintendent of Nurses and told her the whole story.