“And what is more,” I continued, with a firmness of manner about as genuine as her innocence, “unless you will produce them at once, I shall have to search you.”
“Mr. Gordon!” she exclaimed, but she put such surprise and grief and disbelief into the four syllables that I wanted the earth to swallow me then and there.
“Why, Miss Cullen,” I cried, “look at my position. I’m being paid to do certain things, and—”
“But that needn’t prevent your being a gentleman,” she interrupted.
That made me almost desperate. “Miss Cullen,” I groaned, hurriedly, “I’d rather be burned alive than do what I’ve got to, but if you won’t give me those letters, search you I must.”
“But how can I give you what I haven’t?” she cried, indignantly, assuming again her innocent expression.
“Will you give me your word of honor that those letters are not concealed in your clothes?”
“I will,” she answered.
I was very much taken aback, for it would have been so easy for Miss Cullen to have said so before that I had become convinced she must have them.
“And do you give me your word?”