I stood still, watching Debora; my fate lay in her hands. Very slowly she came across to me, and looked into my face, and asked me a question.
"What does the man mean, John?" she asked. "You must please tell me."
I glanced appealingly at Harvey Scoffold; and in a moment I read in his grimly set lips that he meant that the exposure should be carried through. I knew that if I did not tell the tale he would, in some more garbled fashion. Therefore when I spoke it was to him.
"If you'll take this man away," I said slowly—"I'll tell her the truth."
"The truth is always best, dear boy," he said, with a grin.
So I waited in a horrible silence, while the two men went out of the room. Then when the door was closed I turned to the girl, who was more to me than life itself; and my heart sank at the thought of what I had to say to her.
CHAPTER VIII.
MISERY'S BEDFELLOW.
For what seemed a long time, but was after all but a matter of moments, we stood in that room, facing each other; and perhaps the bitterest thing to me then, with the knowledge in my mind of what I had to say, was that when at last she broke silence she should speak to me with tenderness.