“I think,” she said, scornfully, “your father can answer that question.”
“If he could,” said Gordon, “I would ask him. He is dead.”
She was listening to him with face half averted, but now she turned around and met his eyes again.
“Will you answer my question?” he said.
“No,” she replied, slowly; “not if he is dead.”
Young Gordon’s face was painfully white. “I beg you, Miss Jocelyn, to answer me,” he said. “I beg you will answer for your father’s sake and—in justice to my father’s son.”
“What do you care—” she began, but stopped short. To her surprise her own bitterness seemed forced. She saw he did care. Suddenly she pitied him.
“There was a promise broken,” she said, gravely.
“What else?”
“A man’s spirit.”