“I have an unpleasant duty—but it is not a matter that I can lightly pass over—”
Hy paled a little, knit his brows, stared with increasing intensity at that mission house of brass.
“For a long time, Mr. Lowe, I have felt that your conduct was not—”
“Oh,” thought Hy, in a daze, “my conduct was not—”
“—was not—well, in keeping with your position.”
“With my position.” Hy's numb mind repeated.
“This is not a matter of a particular act or a particular occasion, Mr. Lowe. For a long time it has been known to me that you sought undesirable companions, that you have been repeatedly seen in—in Broadway resorts.”
Hy's mind was stirring awake now, darting this way and that like a frightened mouse. Some one had been talking to the doctor—and very recently. The man was a coward in office matters; he had been goaded to this. The “for a long time,” so heavily repeated, was of course a verbal blind. Could it have been—not Miss Hardwick. Then Hy was surprised to hear his own voice:
“But this is a charge, Doctor Wilde! A charge should be definite.” The words came mechanically. Hy must have read them somewhere. “I surely have a right to know what has bcen said about me.”
“I don't know that it is necessary to be specific,” said the doctor, apparently now that the issue was joined, finding his task easier.