Part 25 (2/2)
His eye suddenly rested on the letters she was holding. He stopped short, and reaching forward he tried to s.n.a.t.c.h them from her.
”What have you got there?” he exclaimed.
He took the letters and she made no resistance. It would be folly to force the issue now, she thought. Another opportunity would present itself. Ryder locked the letters up very carefully in the drawer on the left-hand side of his desk, muttering to himself rather than speaking to s.h.i.+rley:
”How on earth did they get among my other papers?”
”From Judge Rossmore, were they not?” said s.h.i.+rley boldly.
”How did you know it was Judge Rossmore?” demanded Ryder suspiciously. ”I didn't know that his name had been mentioned.”
”I saw his signature,” she said simply. Then she added: ”He's the father of the girl you don't like, isn't he?”
”Yes, he's the--”
A cloud came over the financier's face; his eyes darkened, his jaws snapped and he clenched his fist.
”How you must hate him!” said s.h.i.+rley, who observed the change.
”Not at all,” replied Ryder recovering his self-possession and suavity of manner. ”I disagree with his politics and his methods, but--I know very little about him except that he is about to be removed from office.”
”About to be?” echoed s.h.i.+rley. ”So his fate is decided even before he is tried?” The girl laughed bitterly. ”Yes,” she went on, ”some of the newspapers are beginning to think he is innocent of the things of which he is accused.”
”Do they?” said Ryder indifferently.
”Yes,” she persisted, ”most people are on his side.”
She planted her elbows on the desk in front of her, and looking him squarely in the face, she asked him point blank:
”Whose side are you on--really and truly?”
Ryder winced. What right had this woman, a stranger both to Judge Rossmore and himself, to come here and catechise him? He restrained his impatience with difficulty as he replied:
”Whose side am I on? Oh, I don't know that I am on any side. I don't know that I give it much thought. I--”
”Do you think this man deserves to be punished?” she demanded.
She had resumed her seat at the desk and partly regained her self-possession.
”Why do you ask? What is your interest in this matter?”
”I don't know,” she replied evasively; ”his case interests me, that's all. Its rather romantic. Your son loves this man's daughter. He is in disgrace--many seem to think unjustly.” Her voice trembled with emotion as she continued: ”I have heard from one source or another--you know I am acquainted with a number of newspaper men--I have heard that life no longer has any interest for him, that he is not only disgraced but beggared, that he is pining away slowly, dying of a broken heart, that his wife and daughter are in despair. Tell me, do you think he deserves such a fate?”
Ryder remained thoughtful a moment, and then he replied:
”No, I do not--no--”
Thinking that she had touched his sympathies, s.h.i.+rley followed up her advantage:
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