Can you think why ?" and even as she asked, she looked at that clenched hand of hers as though the answer to that question as well lay hidden there.

"I am afraid," she said once more; and upon that Chayne committed the worst of the many indiscretions which had signalized his courtship.
"You are afraid?
Sylvia! Then let me take you away!" At once Sylvia drew back.

Had Chayne not spoken, she would have told him all that there was to tell.

She was in the mood at this unguarded moment.
She would have told him that during these last days Walter Hine had taken to drink once more.

She would have opened that clenched fist and showed the thing it hid, even though the thing condemned her father beyond all hope of exculpation.