“The thing to do is to find out who this hermit really is,” said Mr. Hammond. “Through discovering his private history we may put our finger on the thing that will aid you with proof. Good-night, my dear. Try to get calm again.”
CHAPTER XX
THE GRILL
Ruth did not go back to her chums until, under Mother Paisley’s comforting influence, she had recovered a measure of her self-possession. The old actress asked no questions as to the cause of Ruth’s state of mind. She had seen too many hysterical girls to feel that the cause of her patient’s breakdown was at all important.
“You just cry all you want to, deary. Right here on Mother Paisley’s shoulder. Crying will do you good. It is the Good Lord’s way of giving us women an outlet for all our troubles. When the last tear is squeezed out much of the pain goes with it.”
Ruth was not ordinarily a crying girl. She had wept more of late, beginning with that day at the Red Mill when her scenario manuscript had been stolen, than in all her life before.
Her tears were now in part an expression of anger and indignation. She was as mad as she could be at this man who called himself “John, the hermit.” For, whether he was the person who had actually stolen her manuscript, he very well knew that his scenario offered to Mr. Hammond was not original with him.
The worst of it was, he had mangled her scenario. Ruth could look upon it in no other way. His changes had merely muddied the plot and cheapened her main idea. She could not forgive that!