Vance Cornish gasped. But Elizabeth opened her eyes, and they brightened—but coldly, it seemed to Kate.
“I think I understand,” said Elizabeth Cornish gravely. “He has entangled the interest of this poor girl—and sent her to plead for him. Is that so? If it's money he wants, let her have what she asks for, Vance. But I can't talk to her of the boy.”
“Very well,” said Vance, without enthusiasm. He stepped before her. “Will you step this way, Miss Pollard?”
“Not a step,” she repeated, and deliberately sat down in a chair. “You'd better leave,” she told Vance.
He considered her in open anger. “If you've come to make a scene, I'll have to let you know that on account of my sister I cannot endure it. Really—” “I'm going to stay here,” she echoed, “until I've done talking. I've found the right person. I know that. Tell you what I want? Why, you hate Terry Hollis!”
“Hate—him?” murmured Elizabeth.
“Nonsense!” cried Vance.
“Look at his face, Miss Cornish,” said the girl.
“Vance, by everything that's sacred, your eyes were positively shrinking. Do you hate—him?”
“My dear Elizabeth, if this unknown—”
“You'd better leave,” interrupted the girl. “Miss Cornish is going to hear me talk.”
Before he could answer, his sister said calmly: “I think I shall, Vance. I begin to be intrigued.”
“In the first place,” he blurted angrily, “it's something you shouldn't hear—some talk about a murder—”
Elizabeth sank back in her chair and closed her eyes.
“Ah, coward!” cried Kate Pollard, now on her feet.
“Vance, will you leave me for a moment?”
For a moment he was white with malice, staring at the girl, then suddenly submitting to the inevitable, turned on his heel and left the room.
“Now,” said Elizabeth, sitting erect again, “what is it? Why do you insist on talking to me of—him? And—what has he done?”
In spite of her calm, a quiver of emotion was behind the last words, and nothing of it escaped Kate Pollard.
“I knew,” she said gently, “thattwo people couldn't live with Terry for twenty-four years and both hate him, as your brother does. I can tell you very quickly why I'm here, Miss Cornish.”
“But first—what has he done?”
Kate hesitated. Under the iron self-control of the older woman she saw the hungry heart, and it stirred her. Yet she was by no means sure of a triumph. She recognized the most formidable of all foes—pride. After all, she wanted to humble that pride. She felt that all the danger in which Terry Hollis now stood, both moral and physical, was indirectly the result of this woman's attitude. And she struck her, deliberately cruelly.
“He's taken up with a gang of hard ones, Miss Cornish. That's one thing.”
The face of Elizabeth was like stone.
“Professional—thieves, robbers!”
And still Elizabeth refused to wince. She forced a cold, polite smile of attention.
“He went into a town and killed the best fighter they had.”
And even this blow did not tell.
“And then he defied the sheriff, went back to the town, and broke into a bank and stole fifty thousand dollars.”
The smile wavered and went out, but still the dull eyes of Elizabeth were steady enough. Though perhaps that dullness was from pain. And Kate, waiting eagerly, was chagrined to see that she had not broken through to any softness of emotion. One sign of grief and trembling was all she wanted before she made her appeal; but there was no weakness in Elizabeth Cornish, it seemed.
“You see I am listening,” she said gravely and almost gently. “Although I am really not well. And I hardly see the point of this long recital of crimes. It was because I foresaw what he would become that I sent him away.”
“Miss Cornish, why'd you take him in in the first place?”
“It's a long story,” said Elizabeth.
“I'm a pretty good listener,” said Kate.
Elizabeth Cornish looked away, as though she hesitated to touch on the subject, or as though it were too unimportant to be referred to at length.
“In brief, I saw from a hotel window Black Jack, his father, shot down in the street; heard about the infant son he left, and adopted the child—on a bet with my brother. To see if blood would tell or if I could make him a fine man.”
She paused.
“My brother won the bet!”
And her smile was a wonderful thing, so perfectly did it mask her pain.
“And, of course, I sent Terry away. I have forgotten him, really. Just a bad experiment.”
Kate Pollard flushed.
“You'll never forget him,” she said firmly. “You think of him every day!”
The elder woman started and looked sharply at her visitor. Then she dismissed the idea with a shrug.
“That's absurd. Why should I think of him?”
There is a spirit of prophecy in most women, old or young; and especially they have a way of looking through the flesh of their kind and seeing the heart. Kate Pollard came a little closer to her hostess.
“You saw Black Jack die in the street,” she queried, “fighting for his life?”
Elizabeth dreamed into the vague distance.
“Riding down the street with his hair blowing—long black hair, you know,” she reminisced. “And holding the crowd back as one would hold back a crowd of curs. Then—he was shot from the side by a man in concealment. That was how he fell!”
“I knew,” murmured the girl, nodding. “Miss Cornish, I know now why you took in Terry.”
“Ah?”
“Not because of a bet—but because you—you loved Black Jack Hollis!”
It brought an indrawn gasp from Elizabeth. Rather of horror than surprise. But the girl went on steadily:
“I know. You saw him with his hair blowing, fighting his way—he rode into your heart. I know, I tell you! Maybe you've never guessed it all these years. But has a single day gone when you haven't thought of the picture?”
The scornful, indignant denial died on the lips of Elizabeth Cornish. She stared at Kate as though she were seeing a ghost.
“Not one day!” cried Kate. “And so you took in Terry, and you raised him and loved him—not for a bet, but because he was Black Jack's son!”
Elizabeth Cornish had grown paler than before. “I mustn't listen to such talk,” she said.
“Ah,” cried the girl, “don't you see that I have a right to talk? Because I love him also, and I know that you love him, too.”
Elizabeth Cornish came to her feet, and there was a faint flush in her cheeks.
“You love Terry? Ah, I see. And he has sent you!”
“He'd die sooner than send me to you.”