Greatly alarmed by what Gale had told her concerning the Camera Chap’s peril, Virginia lost no time in seeking an interview with her father. She found the latter seated in his library engaged in the preparation of a long dispatch to Washington. He looked up from his cipher code with a frown as she entered.
“Some other time, my dear; I am exceedingly busy just now,” he protested. “This dispatch has got to be sent off at once.”
“But I can’t wait,” the girl announced. “The business I want to talk over with you is more important than what you are doing. Unless,” she added, with a flash of intuition, “that telegram you are writing concerns the arrest of Mr. Hawley.”
The United States minister swung around in his swivel chair and regarded his daughter with surprise. “How on earth did you guess that?” he demanded.
“Then it is about Mr. Hawley!” the girl exclaimed joyously. “You are cabling the state department that you are going to get him out of prison immediately?”
Minister Throgmorton shook his head. “On the contrary, my dear, I am informing Washington that we can do nothing for him, except to make sure that he gets a fair trial,” he said coldly. “The young man has only himself to blame for his predicament. If he is guilty of the serious offense with which he is charged—and I am given to understand that the government of Baracoa has the strongest kind of a case against him—he must suffer the consequences. The United States government cannot afford to affront a friendly nation by acting in behalf of a mercenary adventurer who has been caught red-handed as a spy for the revolutionists.”
“But Mr. Hawley isn’t a mercenary adventurer,” Virginia protested. “Nor is he a revolutionary spy. I happen to know that he——” She stopped short, suddenly realizing the danger of completing what she had started out to say. In her zeal to save her plucky friend, she had been about to take her father into her confidence concerning the worthy mission which had brought the snapshot wizard to Baracoa, but just in time she recalled that she had made a promise to Hawley that, no matter what happened, she would not give away his secret.
Observing her hesitancy, Throgmorton looked at her keenly. “You happen to know that he is—what?” he demanded sharply.
“I happen to know that he is a newspaper man,” the girl replied evasively.
“A Sentinel man, you mean,” the diplomat rejoined tartly. “That certainly is nothing in his favor. My own experience with that sensational sheet has been quite sufficient to convince me that everybody connected with it is capable of almost anything.”