MIXED MOTIVES.
Mr. Tremain had not been far wrong when he told Esther Newbold that the arrest of so prominent and well-known a person as Miss Hildreth bid fair to develop into an international question.
The charge entered against her was of too grave a nature not to excite and sustain public attention. It certainly appeared to the community at large a very arbitrary and high-handed proceeding that an American citizen could be thus imprisoned at the request of a foreign Government.
Her offence being in no respect a political one, this loophole of escape could not be urged in her favour, for in that case the foreign Government interested in her committal would never have demanded her arrest or expected her surrender into their hands. Doubtless had Miss Hildreth been but a poor workwoman, on whom depended the support of her family, no such strenuous efforts would have been put forth to accomplish her arrest, or a precedence have been created to deal with her position.
But being what she was, and controlling almost unlimited wealth and influence, the case assumed potential proportions, and therefore it was deemed expedient to allow an official inquiry to take place, and to permit the greatest latitude in its operations, even to the calling of witnesses.
To meet this position of affairs great exertions were made on the part of Miss Hildreth's friends, foremost among whom stood Philip Tremain. He had quitted Patricia's presence, at the conclusion of that first interview, as undecided in his own mind as to her guilt or innocence as he had been when he heard of her arrest. Her words, her insinuations, her reticence, had all been so many damning factors against her, while her manner, so light-hearted, so inconsequent, so trivial, were the only elements in her favour.
To Philip, indeed, that very light-heartedness—which he called flippancy—appeared the most suspicious feature of her behaviour. It seemed to him that any woman, no matter how frivolous or hardened, must have given vent to tears and protestations when brought so close to the awful consequences of even supposed guilt; whereas, he found Miss Hildreth even more composed—if that were possible—and more trivial than at their parting in the flies on George Newbold's birthday night.
Good heavens, how long ago that seemed! And what a page of tragedy—or was it melodrama? he had construed since then!
As he walked back to his rooms from Ludlow Street Jail that hot August evening, his mind was very full of Patricia's farewell words:
"Fathom Adèle Lamien's motives, Philip, and you will lay bare the secret of my arrest."