She looked up at him in swift distress.
"No, no! Of course not--of course not! Partner, please don't glare at me like that! What have I done ?" He dropped his eyes abruptly from her startled face, and there followed a silence so intense that she thought he did not even breathe.
Then, in a very low voice: "You've raised Cain," he said.
She shivered.

There was something terrible in the atmosphere.
Dumbly she waited, feeling that protest would but make matters worse.
He turned himself from her at length, and sat with his chin on his hands, staring out to the fading sunset.
When he spoke finally, the hard note had gone out of his voice.
"Do you think it's going to make life any easier to bring that young scoundrel back ?" "I wasn't thinking of that," she said, "It was only--" she hesitated.
"Only ?" said Burke, without turning.
With difficulty she answered him.

"Only that probably you and I are the only people in the world who could do anything to help him.
And so--somehow it seems our job." Burke digested this in silence.

Then: "And what are you going to do with him when you've got him ?" he enquired.
Again she hesitated, but only momentarily.

"I shall want you to help me, partner," she said appealingly.
He made a slight movement that passed unexplained.