In stark surprise Trent stared up at her.
“Why, yes!” he made answer. “Of course I do. I have good reason to know them. I’ve told you the story. I told it to your father, too, before I accepted his invitation to come and see him. They were the two men I found in my kitchen when I——”
“Yes, yes,” she interposed hastily, as though trying to shield him from memories that must be painful. “I know. Of course, I remember. But—but you never told me their names. I’m certain you didn’t. Or they’d have been familiar to me when I heard them this morning.”
“This morning?” echoed Trent, puzzled. “I don’t——”
“I was at the store, doing the marketing,” she explained. “Some men were loafing on the steps, just outside the window. And one of them said, ‘A fellow from down Logan-way told me just now that Con Hegan and Billy Gates are due to be turned loose to-morrow.’ And one of the other men said, ‘Then Trent had better hire a special cop and take out another life insurance policy. Both of ’em swore they’d get him, if they was to go to the chair for it. And that’s one kind of an oath neither of ’em’s liable to break. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes just now!’ That was all I could hear. But it worried me. I didn’t associate the names with those men you had told me about. Perhaps because the phrase ‘turned loose’ didn’t mean anything to me. But I came out here to tell you, just the same. It wasn’t so much what the fellow on the store steps said, as the scared way he said it, that frightened me. Oh, is there any real danger of——”
“Nonsense!” laughed Trent. “There’s no danger at all. And you’re not to give the matter another minute of your precious thought. But it was bully of you to come out here to warn me—to care enough to——”
“You’re making light of it, just to make me stop worrying!” she accused. “I know you are! Won’t you please notify the police about their threat? Won’t you go armed? Won’t you lock your house ever so carefully and keep indoors after dark? And——”
“And wear warm flannels next to my skin, all summer?” supplemented Trent, with vast solemnity. “And carry an umbrella and wear rubbers if the day is at all stormy? And——”
“Stop!” she commanded, a hint of tears in her troubled young voice. “You’re making fun of me!”