"Suppose you tell her what I am going to do," the old man said to his nephew. "It may brace her up, you know."
A helpless, bewildered expression filled the face of the younger man. He hesitated, licked his dry lips, and then wiped them with a handkerchief which he had kept tightly balled in his hand. "You can do it better than I," he managed to get out. "It is most kind, and—and thoughtful of you."
"It is nothing but an effort to defend the family honor," the old man began, and he repeated what he had just said to his nephew, and with some elaboration of details. "What do you think of that?" he ended, with a straight look into the face of the quiet listener.
"It is kind of you," she answered, coldly. "It will be a great help to my husband at the bank. By the way, between you two do you expect to do anything at all toward helping Charlie?"
"Help him! How can we?" the old man asked, with a startled glance at his nephew. "Do you mean, my dear, if we intend to help him escape pursuit?"
"If he has to escape, yes. What can he do alone, and out in the world as he is without friends or money?"
"Money? I guess he has plenty of that, from all accounts," and her uncle suppressed a mirthless smile. "Don't you think so, my dear?"
"I have an idea that he was almost penniless," Celeste answered, her eyes on the floor, her thin white hands clasped firmly in her lap.
"Have you any positive evidence of that?" the old man inquired.
But to his surprise, Celeste made no answer beyond saying: