"Mind I don't let something out about you! Where were you that night, I should like to know?
Or, rather, I do know! You're no safer than I am! And if I told what I do know----" Mallalieu, with his hand on the latch, turned and looked his partner in the face--without furtiveness, for once.
"And if you told aught that you do, or fancy you know," he said quietly, "there'd be ruin in your home, you soft fool! I thought you wanted things kept quiet for your lass's sake?
Pshaw!--you're taking leave o' your senses!" He walked out at that, and Cotherstone, shaking with anger, relapsed into a chair and cursed his fate.

And after a time he recovered himself and began to think, and his thoughts turned instinctively to Lettie.
Mallalieu was right--of course, he was right! Anything that he, Cotherstone, could say or do in the way of bringing up the things that must be suppressed would ruin Lettie's chances.

So, at any rate, it seemed to him.

For Cotherstone's mind was essentially a worldly one, and it was beyond him to believe that an ambitious young man like Windle Bent would care to ally himself with the daughter of an ex-convict.

Bent would have the best of excuses for breaking off all relations with the Cotherstone family if the unpleasant truth came out.