She faced him with glowing eyes and her trembling lips straightened into a thin, firm line of determination. He was her father, and she had always loved him for what she had felt to be his worth; she had given him the chance to explain, and he had not availed himself of it; he was content to remain convicted in her eyes, or else, which was more likely, he could not clear himself. She realized now that, despite what she had said in pique, only the night before, she really loved Wade, and he, at least, had done nothing, except free a friend, who, like himself, was unjustly accused. She could not condemn him for that, any more than she could forget her father's duplicity.
"I won't forget it!" she cried. "If necessary, I will go to Gordon and tell him what you've done. I'll tell it to every one in Crawling Water, if you force me to. I don't want to because, just think what that would mean to you! But you shall not sacrifice Gordon. Yes, I mean it—I'll sacrifice you first!"
"Don't talk so loud," the Senator warned her anxiously, going a little white. "Don't be a fool, Helen. Why, it was only a few hours ago that you said Wade should be punished."
She laughed hysterically.
"That was only because I wanted to get him away from this awful little town. I thought that if he were—punished—a little, if he was made a laughing stock, he might be ashamed, and not want to stay here. Now, I see that I was wrong. I don't blame him for fighting with every weapon he can find. I hope he wins!"
Rexhill, who had been really frightened at her hysterical threat of exposure, and assailed by it in his pride as well, felt his fear begin to leave him and his confidence in himself return. In the next minute or two, he thought rapidly and to considerable purpose. In the past he had resolutely refused to use his child in any way to further his own ends, but the present occasion was an emergency, and major surgery is often demanded in a crisis. If she were willing, as she said, to sacrifice him, he felt that he might properly make use of her and her moods to save himself and her as well. He realized that if she were to shout abroad through Crawling Water the conversation that had passed between him and Moran, the likelihood of either of the two men getting out of the county alive would be extremely remote.
"So that was it, eh? And I complimented you upon your good sense!" His laugh was less of an effort now. "Well, doesn't it hold good now as well as it did then? Come, my dear, sit down and we'll thresh this out quietly."
She shook her head stubbornly, but the woman in her responded to the new note of confidence in his voice, and she waited eagerly for what he had to say, hopeful that he might still clear himself.
"You tell me that I must fight fair. Well, I usually do fight that way. I'm doing so now. When I spoke yesterday of crushing Wade, I meant it and I still mean it. But there are limits to what I want to see happen to him; for one thing, I don't want to see him hung for this Jensen murder, even if he's guilty."