"Your word!" murmured the girl with a sort of horrified wonder. "Your word!"
And Donnegan bowed his head.
But all at once she cast out her free hand toward him, while the other still cherished the weakness of Jack Landis.
"Oh, give them up!" she cried. "Give up my father and all his wicked plans. There is something good in you. Give him up; come with us; stand for us: and we shall be grateful all our lives!"
The little man had removed his hat, so that the sunshine burned brightly on his red hair. Indeed, there was always a flamelike quality about him. In inaction he seemed femininely frail and pale; but when his spirit was roused his eyes blazed as his hair burned in the sunlight.
"You shall learn in the end," he said to the girl, "that everything I do, I do for you."
She cried out as if he had struck her.
"It's not worthy of you," she said bitterly. "You are keeping Jack here—in peril—for my sake?"
"For your sake," said Donnegan.
She looked at him with a queer pain in her eyes.