"Send Lewis up here to my office," he directed. "What? Hasn't come in yet?" he repeated incredulously. "That's strange," he said grimly, half to himself. "The first time I ever knew him to be late."

Something seemed to tighten suddenly about Nance's heart. Could it be possible that Mr. Clarke was suspecting Dan of signing that check?

She watched his nervous hands as they ran over the morning mail. He had singled out one letter and, as he finished reading it, he handed it to her.

It was from Dan, a brief business-like resignation, expressing appreciation of Mr. Clarke's kindness, regret at the suddenness of his departure, and giving as his reason private affairs that took him permanently to another city.

When Nance lifted her startled eyes from the signature, she saw that Mr.

Clarke was closely scrutinizing the writing on the envelope.

"It's incredible!" he said, "and yet the circ.u.mstances are most suspicious. He gives no real reason for leaving."

"I can," said Nance, resolutely. "He wanted me to marry him, and I wouldn't promise. He asked me Sat.u.r.day afternoon, after he come out of here. We had a quarrel, and he said he was going away; but I didn't believe it."

"Did he ask you to go away with him? Out of town anywhere?"

"Yes; he said he would go anywhere I said."

A flash of anger burnt out the look of fear that had been lurking in Mr.

Clarke's face.

"He's the last man I would have suspected! Of course I knew he had been in a reformatory at one time, but--"

The band that had been tightening around Nance's heart seemed suddenly to burst. She sprang to her feet and stood confronting him with blazing eyes.

"What right have you got to think Dan did it? There were two of them in this room. Why don't you send for Mr. Mac and ask him questions?"

"Well, for one reason he's in New York, and for another, my son doesn't have to resort to such means to get what money he wants."

"Neither does Dan Lewis! He was a street kid; he was had up in court three times before he was fourteen; he was a month at the reformatory; and he's knocked elbows with more crooks than you ever heard of; but you know as well as me that there ain't anybody living more honest than Dan!"

"All he's got to do is to prove it," said Mr. Clarke, grimly.

Nance looked at the relentless face of the man before her and thought of the money at his command to prove whatever he wanted to prove.

"See here, Mr. Clarke!" she said desperately, "you said a while ago that all the facts were against Dan. Will you tell me one thing?"

"What is it?"

"Did you give Mr. Mac the money to pay that note last Sat.u.r.day?"

"What note?"

"The one the Meyers fellow was after him about?"

"Mac asked for no money, and I gave him none. In fact he told me that aside from his debts at the club and at the garage, he owed no bills. So you see your friend Meyers misinformed you."

Here was Nance's chance to escape; she had spoken in Dan's defense; she had told of the Meyers incident. To take one more step would be to convict Mac and compromise herself. For one miserable moment conflicting desires beat in her brain; then she heard herself saying quite calmly:

"No, sir, it wasn't Meyers that told me; it was Mr. Mac himself."

Mr. Clarke wheeled on her sharply.

"How did my son happen to be discussing his private affairs with you?"

"Mr. Mac and me are friends," she said. "He's been awful nice to me; he's given me more good times than I ever had in my whole life before. But I didn't know the money wasn't his or I wouldn't have gone with him."

"And I suppose you thought it was all right for a young man in Mac's position to be paying attention to a young woman in yours?"

Mr. Clarke studied her face intently, but her fearless eyes did not falter under his scrutiny.

"Are you trying to implicate Mac in this matter to spare Lewis, is that it?"

"No, sir. I don't say it was Mr. Mac. I only say it wasn't Dan. There are some people you just _know_ are straight, and Dan's one of them."

Mr. Clarke got up and took a turn about the room, his hands locked behind him. Her last shot had evidently taken effect.

"Tell me exactly what Mac told you about this Meyers note," he demanded.

Nance recounted the facts in the case, ending with the promise Mac had made her to tell his father everything and begin anew.

"I wish I had known this Sat.u.r.day!" Mr. Clarke said, sinking heavily into his chair. "I came down on the boy pretty severely on another score and gave him little chance to say anything. Did he happen to mention the exact amount of his indebtedness to Meyers?"

"He said it was five hundred and sixty dollars."

A sigh that was very like a groan escaped from Mr. Clarke; then he pulled himself together with an effort.

"You understand, Miss Molloy," he said, "that it is quite a different thing for my son to have done this, and for Lewis to have done it. Mac knows that what is mine will be his eventually. If he signed that check, he was signing his own name as well as mine. Of course, he ought to have spoken to me about it. I am not excusing him. He has been indiscreet in this as well as in other ways. I shall probably get a letter from him in a few days explaining the whole business. In the meanwhile the matter must go no further. I insist upon absolute silence. You understand?"

She nodded.

"And one thing more," Mr. Clarke added. "I forbid any further communication between you and Mac. He is not coming home at Christmas, and we are thinking of sending him abroad in June. I propose to keep him away from here for the next two or three years."

Nance fingered the blotter on the table absently. It was all very well for them to plan what they were going to do with Mac, but she knew in her heart that a line from her would set at naught all their calculations.

Then her mind flew back to Dan.

"If he comes back--Dan, I mean,--are you going to take him on again?"

Mr. Clarke saw his chance and seized it.

"On one condition," he said. "Will you give me your word of honor not to communicate with Mac in any way?"

They were both standing now, facing each other, and Nance saw no compromise in the stern eyes of her employer.

"I'll promise if I've got to," she said.

"Very well," said Mr. Clarke. "That's settled."