He did know, and the picture came vividly into his
mind--a mass of eager devouring eyes fixed on a girl in a witness chair.
"To-morrow I see a lawyer!" he said.
"No--you won't do that, my dear," Deborah told him sadly. "Laura's husband
has got proofs."
Her father looked up slowly and glared into his daughter's face.
"I've seen them myself," she added. "And Laura has admitted it, too."
Still for a moment he stared at her. Then slowly he settled back in his
chair, his eyes dropped in their sockets, and very carefully, with a hand
which was trembling visibly, he lifted his cigar to his lips. It had gone
nearly out, but he drew on it hard until it began to glow again.
"Well," he asked simply, "what shall we do?"
Sharply Deborah turned away. To be quiet, to be matter of fact, to act as
though nothing had happened at all--she knew this was what he wanted now,
what he was silently begging her to be for his sake, for the family's sake.
For he had been raised in New England. And so, when she turned back to him,
her voice was flat and commonplace.
"Keep her here," she said. "Let him do what he likes. There'll be nothing
noisy, he promised me that. But keep her here till it's over."
Roger smoked for a moment, and said,
"There's Edith and her children."
"The children needn't know anything--and Edith only part of it."
"The less, the better," he grunted.
"Of course." She looked at him anxiously.
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