Frightened lest he should see Beekman before she saw him herself, for she realised that her father was desperate for some unknown reason and quite capable of carrying out his threat, Leslie swept on past Jeffries and into the room where Beekman was waiting, his eyes bright with a new hope.
"Idiot that I was, Leslie," he began breathlessly, "I was half way home before I came to my senses. Then in a flash I saw it all—no, you can't fool me this time. The whole trouble is your father's troubles. Come, confess!"
"But I've already confessed," she said. And so she had, though not in the way she intended, for her eyes told the story.
It was, therefore, with no uncertain tread, but rather with a sudden warmth and force that seemed to take possession of him, body and soul, that he continued:
"Look here, little one, this is a matter between you and me and no one else. You must consider no one, but remember only that I represent to you the one man in all the world for you, as you stand for the only woman in the world for me: for I love you, Leslie, and I know that you love me."
There had been times when Eliot Beekman had stood before and pleaded with reluctant juries and judges whose faces were dead set against him, but his task then had been nothing compared with the one now. And yet so well did he plead his case, that when he had finished it was as he had told her: she forgot her father's sentence, forgot everything, except that she loved him, and that he was the one man in all the world for her.
"I believe you," she confessed to him in a whisper; "I believe you are right. Would to heaven that you had given me the chance to say this to you months ago."
"You've loved me all the time?" he asked, his pulse beating fast.
"Yes," she answered, "and I knew that you loved me."