"I want to tell you," he affirmed, wheeling abruptly to face her; "I wanted to tell you yesterday, only it was too horrible. You will know it all when I say that by this time to-morrow the whole State will be ringing with the story of David Blount's degradation and ruin; and I--his only son, Patricia--I shall be the one who will have betrayed him and brought it to pass!" She blanched a little at that, and there was a great horror in her eyes. But he noted at the moment, and remembered it afterward, that she did not push him into the harrowing details, as another woman might have done. "You are very sure, I suppose?" she said gently. He drew the packet of affidavits from his pocket. "This is the evidence: sworn statements incriminating my father and many others." "You had those papers yesterday?" "No. I got up last night to keep my appointment with the man who brought them. But you see now why I can't go to Wartrace with you." "I see that you are going to do something for which you will never, never be able to forgive yourself," she said gravely. "You are going to make use of those papers?" He sat down and stared gloomily at her. "Patricia, I have taken a solemn oath. The law which I have sworn to uphold is greater than--" He was going to say, "greater than any man's claim for immunity," but she finished the sentence otherwise for him. "Is greater than your love for your father. I suppose I ought to be able to understand that, but I am not. Evan, you can't do it--you mustn't do it; every drop of that father's blood in your veins ought to cry out against it." "Ah!" he exclaimed with a sudden indrawing of his breath. "You don't know what it is costing me!" "Truly, I don't," she asserted calmly. "Your father is a great and good man. If he had a daughter instead of a son, she would know and understand." Then, in a quick and generous upflash of feeling: "I wish he had a daughter--I wish I were she! I should try to show him that blood is thicker than water!" "You wish--you were--his daughter? Do you realize what you are saying?" Then he went on brokenly: "_Don't_, Patricia, girl--for God's sake don't tempt me to do evil that good may come! Can't you understand how I am driven to do this thing--how every fibre of me is rebelling against the savage necessity? God knows, I'd give anything I am or hope to be if the necessity could be wiped out!" Instantly she changed her attack. "But I say you can not do it. You are a brave man, Evan; I know, because I have seen you tried. You mustn't turn cowardly now." "Nor shall I!" he countered quickly. "But I don't understand." "Don't you? Isn't it cowardly to strike this cruel blow in the dark? You _can't_ do this thing without giving your father the warning that you would give your bitterest enemy--you simply can't, and still be the man I have known and l--liked for two whole years!"