'Hen, they can and they do.'
'But I can prove——'
'What can you prove? What chance will you have to prove anything? You were disturbed when Martha Caldwell and the party with Charles H. Merchant caught you with her up at Hoffmann's——'
'But, Hump, I didn't want to take her out that night! And it's the only time I ever really talked to her except once or twice in the boarding-house.'
He was speaking with less energy now. He felt the blow. Not as he would feel it a few hours later; but he felt it.
Humphrey watched him.
'It has brought things home to me,' he said uncertainly. 'The sort of thing that can happen. When you're caught in a drift, you don't think, of course... Now, Hen, listen! This is real trouble. It's going to hit you about to-morrow—full force. It's got to be faced. I don't want to think that you'd run——'
'Oh, no,' Henry put in mechanically, 'I won't run.'
'I'm sure you won't. But it's got to be faced. You're hit especially.'
'But why, when I——'