"What is it you wish to know?" His glance was oblique and his manner one
of discomfort, the embarrassed discomfort of a man who fears that the
real truth--the truth he has generously striven to withhold--is at last
to come out.

"That letter which Bernal was so troubled about came from--from that
woman--how could I avoid seeing that when it was handed to me? Did you
know it, too?"

"Why, Nancy--I knew--of course--I knew he expected--I mean the poor boy
told me--" Here he broke off in the same pitiful confusion that had
marked Bernal's manner at the door--the confusion of apprehended deceit.
Then he began again, as if with gathered wits--"What was I saying? I
know nothing whatever of Bernal's affairs or his letters. Really, how
should I? You see, I have work on my mind." As if to cover his
awkwardness, he seized his pen and hastily began to cross out a phrase
on the page before him.

"Allan!" Though low, it was so near a cry that he looked up in what
seemed to be alarm. She was leaning forward in the chair, one hand
reaching toward him over the desk, and she spoke rapidly.

"Allan, I find myself suspecting now that you tried to deceive me this
afternoon--that Bernal did, also, incredible as it sounds--that you
tried to take the blame of that wretched thing off his shoulders. That
letter to him indicates it, his own pitiful embarrassment just now--oh,
an honest man wouldn't have looked as he did!--your own manner at this
instant. You are both trying--Oh, tell me the truth now!--you'll never
dream how badly I need it, what it means to my whole life--tell me,