"And you and me--and Effie, if Owen marries her, and I leave
my child with them! Don't you see the impossibility of what
you're asking? We're all bound together in this coil."

Darrow turned away with a groan. "Oh, let her go--let her
go."

"Then there IS something--something really bad? She
WAS with some one when you met her? Some one with whom she
was----" She broke off, and he saw her struggling with new
thoughts. "If it's THAT, of course...Oh, don't you
see," she desperately appealed to him, "that I must find
out, and that it's too late now for you not to speak? Don't
be afraid that I'll betray you...I'll never, never let a
soul suspect. But I must know the truth, and surely it's
best for her that I should find it out from you."

Darrow waited a moment; then he said slowly: "What you
imagine's mere madness. She was at the theatre with me."

"With you?" He saw a tremor pass through her, but she
controlled it instantly and faced him straight and
motionless as a wounded creature in the moment before it
feels its wound. "Why should you both have made a mystery
of that?"

"I've told you the idea was not mine." He cast about. "She
may have been afraid that Owen----"

"But that was not a reason for her asking you to tell me