"It is perfectly horrid!" she exclaimed. "What in the world can you think of us? ... But we were quite innocent—it was merely chance. Isn't it strange, Mr. Edgerton!—Silvette and I had walked and walked and walked, looking for some furnished apartment within our means which we might take by the month; and in Fifty-sixth Street we saw the sign, 'Apartment and Studio to let for the summer,' and we inquired, and he let us have it for almost nothing.... And we never even knew that it belonged to you!"
"To whom did you draw your checks for the rent?"
"We were to pay the janitor."
"Have you done so?" he asked sharply.
"N-no. We arranged—not to pay—until we could afford it——"
"I'm glad of that! Don't you pay that scoundrel one penny. As for me, of course I couldn't think of accepting——"
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" she said in pretty despair; "I've got to tell you everything now! Several humiliating things—circumstances—very tragic, Mr. Edgerton."
"No; you need not tell me a single thing that is likely to distress you."
"But I've got to! You don't understand. That wretched janitor has put us in a position from which there is absolutely no escape. Because I—we ought to go away instantly—b-but we—can't!"
"Not at all, Miss Tennant. I ought to leave you in possession, and I—I'm trying to think out how to—to do it."