“Yes, I! I! Why not?” she asked. “And learn if he has the child, or knows where it is. Then if he be innocent of this last wickedness, as I believe him to be innocent, we shall learn the fact without harming him; always supposing that I go to him, undetected. And I can do that—with your help! That must be your care.”
He pondered.
“But if,” he said slowly, “you do this and he have the child? What then? Have you thought of the consequences to yourself? If he be privy to a crime which none but desperate men could commit, what of you? He will be capable of harming you. Or if he scruple, there will be others, the men who took my child, who will stick at nothing to keep their necks out of the noose, and to remove a witness who else might hang them.”
“I am not afraid,” she said firmly.
“God bless you!” he said. “God bless you! But I am.”
“What?” she cried, and she turned to him, honestly astonished. “You? You dissuade me when it is your child that is in peril?”
“Be silent!” he said harshly. “Be silent! For your own sake, if not for mine! Why do you tempt me? Why do you torture me? Do you think, Henrietta, that I have not enough to tempt me without your help? No, no,” more quietly, “I have done you wrong already! I know not how I can make amends. But at least I will not add to the wrong.”
“I only ask you to leave me to myself,” she said hardily. “The rest I will do, if I am not watched.”
“The rest!” he said with a groan. “But what a rest it is! Why should these men spare you if you go to them? They did not spare my boy!”
“They took the boy,” she answered, “to punish you. They will not have the same motive for harming me. I mean—they will not harm me with the idea of hurting you.”