Yet some reward he felt was her due. As a result the interview which she asked he presently arranged. Under conditions which to her were as tragic as they were humiliating she saw Annandale in the visitors’ room at the Tombs. The room itself was not absolutely appalling, and though there was a keeper present, he was quite out of earshot, very oblivious, extremely civil and, parenthetically, handsomely paid.
Orr awaited her at the door. When she rejoined him her eyes were wet.
Orr looked at her. A little tune occurred to him. “Sylvia, Sylvia, I’m a-thinking—” But after all, he reflected, Fanny is dead.
Instantly the girl reddened and very distantly, her head in the air, announced, “We are betrothed.”
“Ah,” said Orr, “ah, indeed! The engagement will be rather long, I fear.”
“Oh, Melanchthon, don’t say that. Arthur is as innocent as you are. I know you don’t believe it, but—”
Orr interrupted her. “It is not a question of what I believe. Independent of your interest in the man he is my client. I owe him a duty. That duty is to get him off, or to do my best to.”
“I know you will,” Sylvia fervently replied; “I feel it. So does Arthur. Besides, the only one we have to fear is Harris.”
Orr smiled grimly. “Harris, I understand, is not very well.”
“Not well? What do you mean?” the girl wonderingly inquired.
“I mean,” he enigmatically answered, “that next week when I have him on the stand I propose to give him a little medicine.”
Then he smiled again, grimly as before, with an air of personal satisfaction.