The suddenness of the question startled him. "Why—what do you mean?"
"You know what I mean!" She spoke in a voice tremulous with repressed feeling. "But there's no need of asking. It's horrible—what I realize you do think. And I can't—it's almost more than I can bear."
"Why, Alison," he began wonderingly, "you must know—"
She interrupted with a passionate gesture. "I do know. That newspaper clipping you showed me—it's about me and my brother. We ran away—yes. That much is true, but the rest of it is a lie—a shameless lie. Neither Archie nor I had anything to do with my uncle's—with the dreadful thing they charged. I'm telling you the truth. I swear it's the truth!"
Dexter looked down grimly at the girl, steeling his heart against the appeal of beseeching blue eyes. "It's been my experience," he observed, "that innocent people as a rule do not run from the law."
"I know—I know!" she cried brokenly. "It looks bad not to stay, and I wanted to stay and face it out. We never would have left home if I'd had my way!"
"Well?" he asked mildly.
"As you read in the clipping," she went on in quick, overwrought speech, "my uncle, our guardian, died, and it was found that a poison had been given him. Archie and I were his heirs. We were—the police discovered that we were the only ones in the household who had easy access to his medicine. Archie had been foolishly playing the market, had lost heavily, was in desperate financial straits. That all came out, and—well, we got word that a murder indictment had been brought by the grand jury. And Archie lost his head—saw no hope of escape if he stayed—decided there was nothing to do but run while he had the chance."
"He got together all the money he could," she added in a choking voice; "he packed a bag, and left secretly in the night. But I had been watching." She shook her head sadly. "Archie is younger than I, the baby—I've got to say it—the weakling of the family. I knew he would do the wrong thing. And I followed him and overtook him at the station as he was about to board a west-bound train. I argued, pleaded, begged him to stay and see it through. He was afraid—desperately. I could do nothing with him, and so at the end—there was nothing for me to do but get on the train and go with him. He's always needed looking after, and at the last—well, I had to stand by him. I couldn't let him go alone."
"Believing him innocent, of course," Dexter remarked dryly.