"What?" asked the girl, gazing in wonderment. "What do you mean, Archie?"
"This! Uncle Oscar! The doctor!"
"Yes!" she urged tensely, the color slowly draining from her cheeks. "What is it? What are you trying to tell me?"
"Why, this!" returned the boy with a hysterical catch in his throat. "Don't you understand? Dr. Borden, who attended Uncle Oscar when he died—he's been caught and sent to an asylum—insanity—homicidal mania. It's here—telegraphed from Duluth—it's here in this paper. He killed another man, and they've caught him!"
"Archie!" gasped the girl, her eyes grown wide and staring. "Tell me quick! You mean Dr. Borden—?"
"Here! Read it for yourself!" The boy thrust the newspaper in his sister's trembling hands. "Dr. Borden himself put the poison in our uncle's medicines. And now he's killed another patient the same way. He's crazy—has been crazy for months. And they've found him out and arrested him and sent him to an asylum."
Archie threw both hands above his head, and his chest heaved with a great sobbing breath. "I'm innocent, and it is proven," he exulted. "I can go back home. They can't hold me for a crime that another man committed."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE GREATEST GIFT
The boy stood with uplifted head, breathing heavily through parted lips, a mad joy burning in his eyes. But the two officers ignored him to observe the effect of the news on his sister. Alison had given a single broken cry as her brother handed her the newspaper. She moved on tottering feet to the window, but her hands were so unsteady that she could not possibly have read the wavering print of the eagerly gripped news sheet.