She had her riposte ready.
“And wisely!” she answered, “and wisely! How wisely you have proved to me to-day—you,”—with scorn equal to his own—“who are willing to sacrifice me, a helpless woman, on the mere chance of saving your child! Who are willing to send me, a woman of your blood, to prison and to shame, to herd—you have said it yourself—with such vile women as prisons hold! And that on the mere chance of saving your son! For shame, Captain Clyne, for shame!”
“You are wasting time,” he answered. “You have eight minutes.”
“You are determined that I shall go?”
“Or speak.”
“Will you not hear,” she asked slowly, “what I have to say on my side? What reason I have for not speaking? What excuse? What extenuation of my conduct?”
“No,” he replied. “Your reasons for speaking or not speaking, your conduct or misconduct, are nothing to me. I am thinking of my child.”
“And not at all of me?”
“No.”
“Yet listen,” she said, with something approaching menace in her tone, “for you will think of me! You will think of me—presently! When it is too late, Captain Clyne, you will remember that I stood before you, that I was alone and helpless, and you would not hear my reasons nor my excuses. You will remember that I was a girl, abandoned by all, left alone among strangers and spies, without friend or adviser.”