"But, my dear," I explained, when she seemed more comfortable, "you must let me tell you of a discovery I have made. I saw that book—"
Rousing herself with difficulty Miss May looked me in the eyes like a sleep-walker.
"Don!" she said, vehemently. "Don! Sometimes you tell me you love me! How can you then persist in this torture! I cannot bear to think of that book, to hear it spoken of! You may call me foolish, and probably I am. There are women who are afraid of snakes, lizards, rats; not one of those creatures could disturb my nerves. But when I think of men that live by crime, that rob and steal—and murder—it is as if the hands of one of them was on my own throat!"
Soothingly I promised to be careful in the future—sadly I spoke my regrets at the pain I had caused her. I knew too well the vagaries of ill-balanced nerves not to understand that they require no reason to set themselves on edge.
I bade the driver cut our ride short and we drove back to the hotel in nearly perfect silence.
But I could not help my thoughts. If Wesson had stolen that book, what was there to show that he had not stolen my diamond, and those of Marjorie and of Miss Howes? What could I think but, with his almost exclusive opportunities on the steamer, he was the guilty man? I recalled his offer to watch from our cabin, his assumption of the rôle of a sleuth-hound—undoubtedly to deceive me. What was he doing at Barbados unless to watch for another chance to ply his profession?
The more attention I gave to the matter the clearer everything grew.
Undoubtedly Wesson was, on general principles, much more than a match for me in shrewdness, but when I started to do a thing I usually accomplished it.
I resolved that if he was the thief, I would trace his work home to him and make him restore the fruits of his larceny.