It was a long speech for Eldred, and it brought her down from the stars.
"Naturally I am delighted to do anything on earth for the Desmonds," she said sweetly, ignoring his final remark. "You speak as if I might refuse to go. But I haven't fallen quite so low as that."
"Quita, have you no mercy on a man?" he flashed out between anger and pain. "There has never been any question of 'falling' on your side, and you know it. But surely you understand that, in spite of all that has happened between, what I dared not to do a month ago, I dare not do now."
"Do you mean . . is . . the trouble not any less?"
"No."
"But I thought you were going . . to fight it?"
"So I am; so I shall, till I break it, or it breaks me. But look back over the past few weeks, and ask yourself if I have had much of a chance so far."
She unclasped her hands and looked up at him, speech hovering in her eyes. But she dropped them again, and stood so, with bowed head, shifting her rings nervously up and down her slim third finger.
"Dear lass, what's troubling you?" he asked. "We've got to understand one another to-night; so don't be afraid to speak out. Better make a clean wound and have done with it, than think hard things of me that may be unjust. Tell me the thought I saw in your eyes."
"I was thinking of something Michael said." She spoke in an even voice without looking up.