"Mr. Repellier!" She drew herself up, flaming, flashing at him unspeakable indignation.
"You--you are a coward!" she cried, as a gush of tears came to her eyes.
"Then I am mistaken?" he asked, icily, but more quietly.
"It is all too ridiculous," she said brokenly, over her handkerchief. "You are more than mistaken. But I should like to know whether you mean this for a joke, or an insult!"
"And on your word of honor as a woman, The Silver Poppy is your rightful property?"
"And you wrote it out of your own head, with your own hand?"
"I wrote every word of it," was the low response.
"Would you mind telling me, please, just where and at what time you did so?" he asked.
"I did not come here, Mr. Repellier, to go into a criminal's witness-box," she said tremulously, "and I cannot stay to answer questions that are neither courteous nor rational. I'm afraid that I really must be going."
"One moment, I beg of you, Miss Vaughan," cried Repellier after her. She turned and faced him.
"You are misunderstanding me entirely. I haven't the slightest wish to hurt or offend you in any way. I only want to clear up this mystery, so that my knowledge of the facts may be a protection to you yourself, should the occasion arise."
"Yes, to you," he repeated. He motioned her toward the chair again. She hesitated.
"Couldn't you write this to me? Couldn't you put it down on paper, and then I could answer it in the same way. I hate mysteries, and I'm tired this afternoon."
"It will have to be talked over by us, face to face," he replied. And there was nothing for her to do but to go back to her chair once more.
"Will you let me explain away the mystery as clearly and frankly as I can?" he asked her.
Repellier, seating himself opposite her and still looking closely into her face, could see the pupils of the now pale-green eyes contract oddly.
"Three years ago one of the brightest and most scholarly editorial writers on all Park Row was practically thrown into the street by the paper for which he wrote, simply because they regarded him as a man who had gone stale, who had written himself out. To his paper he was a sucked lemon--a squeezed sponge. He was careless, good-natured, and easy-going; and when he came to me for my advice I asked him: Why not make a plunge, and write a book? He was not strong, however; in fact, I had always suspected that he was consumptive, and before his book was half written I saw clearly enough that he could not last long--at least not here in the East. So I, among others, persuaded him to go South--indeed, his doctor and his friends had to _drive_ him away. So off the lonely, broken fellow went to a little town in Kentucky to finish his beloved book. Ah, I see you follow me! I myself was on the point of sailing for Europe--I had to go--and was abroad for over a year. But during that last night we were together in New York he read to me what he had already written of his Great Work. I remember it more or less well--certain things about it stand out distinctly. Long before I came back to New York he was dead, poor fellow. I always thought that his book had died with him. For the first time yesterday I read The Silver Poppy."