Dr. Vivian, from the Dabney House, over the Gulf, stood still, quite
silenced....

The thought had struck V. Vivian, and shot him down, that this girl was
lying, deliberately suppressing the truth that meant more than life to
Dal. She hadn't screamed. Dal hadn't known she was upset.... Yet was it
thinkable? In the fiercest denouncing of the yellowest Huns, who had
ever dreamed anything so base of them as this? _Lying?_ With that face
like all the angels, that voice like a heavenly choir?...

The tall doctor saw that his suspicion was unworthy and absurd. His was
no simple choice between his friend's shameful cowardice, and this
girl's criminal falsehood. No, Dal was crazy-drunk at the time, and
himself cried out in his misery that the worst that they said of him was
probably true. And even supposing that this girl was no more than a
fiend in seraphic shape, what conceivable reason could she have for such
infamous suppression? Motive was unimaginable.... No, the fault must be
his own. He had pressed too hard, pried too tactlessly and
inquisitively, not made her understand sufficiently the dire swiftness
of the poor boy's need....

These two stood face to face. Carlisle saw that Jack Dalhousie's friend
was becoming excited; but then, so was she. The man spoke first, in a
low, hurried voice:

"I don't mean to catechise--indeed, I don't. You must try to forgive me
for the liberties I seem to be taking.... The thing's so serious, so
pitiful. This story already flying around back in town--making him a
base coward--he'll never live it down. And it's to-night or never, a--a
misstatement travels so fast and far, and has so long a life--"