23/27 "Hear that!" she cried, with a wild, terrible laugh. "A gentleman! Yes, that's true--a gentleman. Saving your sister from the coarse contamination of an honest man!" Then to the men who were dragging at him: "No, I say--_no_! Let him alone! Don't touch the creature! He'll only foul your hands." And she pushed them back. What worse fate could he have than to be pointed at every day of a long life as the worthless drunken thing who murdered a man, and then tried to save himself by defaming his victim and his own sister ?" Under cover of her barrier of command, the constable led Arden into the house, past where his sister lay in a swoon, and by the back way got him to jail. |