When he spoke again, his words startled me.
"Phil, when did you see Jean Pahusca last?"
"Last night, no, this morning, about one o'clock," I answered confusedly.
My father swung around in his chair and stared at me. Then his face grew stern, and I knew my safety lay in the whole truth. I learned that when I was a boy.
"On the point of rock by the bushes on Cliff Street."
"Phil, save my time now. It's a matter of great importance to my business. Also, it is serious with you. Begin at the party. Whose escort were you?"
My father looked me straight in the eyes. I returned his gaze steadily.
"Go on. Tell me everything." He spoke crisply.
"I was late to the party. Tillhurst asked Marjie for her company just as I went in. Judson was going her way, and she chose the lesser of two--pleasures, we'll say. Just before the party broke up, Judson was called out. He had asked Lettie for her company, and he shoved her over to my tender mercies."
"And you went strolling up on Cliff Street in the moonlight with her till after midnight. Is that fair to Marjie?" I had never heard his voice sound so like resonant iron before.
"I, strolling? I covered the seven blocks from Anderson's to Conlow's in seven minutes, and stood at the gate long enough to let the young lady through, and to pinch my thumb in the blamed old latch, I was in such a hurry; and then I made for the Baronets' roost."
"But why didn't you stay there?" he asked.
I blushed for a certainty now. My actions seemed so like a brain-sick fool's.
"Now, Phil," my father said more kindly, "you remember I told you when you came to let me know you were twenty-one, that you must not get too old to make a confidant of me. It is your only safe course now."
"Father, am I a fool, or is it in the Baronet blood to love deeply and constantly even unto death?"
The strong man before me turned his face to the window.
"I had been away nearly a week. I sat up and wrote a long letter to Marjie. It would stand as clean evidence in court. I'm not ashamed of what I put on paper, although it is my own business. Then I went out to a certain place under the cliff where Marjie and I used to hide our valentines and put little notes for each other years ago."
He assented, and I went on. "I had come to the top again and was looking at the beauty of the night, when somebody caught me by the throat. It was Jean Pahusca."