"What—what is it?" The appeal was to her brother.
"He let me beat him," Phil explained.
"Let you beat him! Why?"
"I don't know."
What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code, and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation.
"Tell me," Phyllis commanded.
Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him; but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things great as well as of deeds despicable.
"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay."
She shook her head. "No, Phil—you must go. I'm all right here—as safe as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends in the hills."
The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that would answer. Reluctantly he gave way.