"Will you explain it to me?"
"There is so very little to explain! When we get home——"
"No, now! You need not be afraid to tell me the worst. If anything could have killed me or driven me mad, I should be dead to this suffering now. Has—that man withdrawn the charge he made against me?"
"N—o!" stammered Pyne.
"I see! You forget that my experience has been in the office of a lawyer. How much bail was required?"
The interrogation was put to the officer, and not to Pyne.
Disregarding, or not seeing the glance of warning from the latter, he answered with the customary indifference of his class:
"Fifteen hundred."
Leonie groaned. Something in her face sent a quick thrill of apprehension through Pyne, but as she fell back immediately into the old apathy, he said nothing.
Silently he led her to the waiting carriage, and they were driven again to that house wherein death reigned. Wearily Leonie dragged herself up the long, steep flight and into the room where she had only that morning—but how long ago it seemed—heard the hideous story of her mother's shame.