The woman sighed. “There is a good reason for what I ask. You would be running a great risk, and——”
“Don’t worry about the risk, señora,” the Camera Chap interrupted cheerfully. “If that’s your only reason for asking me to quit, I’m afraid I’ll have to refuse to listen to you.”
“It isn’t the only reason,” she rejoined. “If there was anything to be gained by it, I’m afraid I would be selfish enough to let you go ahead in spite of the danger you would incur; but when I know that you have come on a wild-goose chase, I feel it my duty to prevent you from sacrificing yourself.”
“A wild-goose chase!” the Camera Chap repeated.
“Yes; for your president is misinformed,” the señora declared tensely. “My husband is not confined in El Torro. He is not in Baracoa. There is no truth in the rumor which has brought you here.”
It was almost as if she had struck Hawley a physical blow. Although, of course, he had realized all along that there was a possibility of the story turning out to be baseless, and although the president had intimated that he himself placed no stock in the sensational rumor, and was merely sending Hawley to Baracoa in order to remove the last possible doubt from his mind, somehow the Camera Chap had been confident until that moment that he was embarked on no fruitless mission. Instinctively he had felt that Felix was a martyr instead of the rogue which the world believed him. But now this statement, coming from the missing man’s wife, seemed to dispel all hope that such was the case.
“Do you know where he is, señora?” he inquired, his disappointment evident in his voice.
The woman hesitated, and he caught the shade which flitted across her face. “I do,” she said at length, almost in a whisper. “He is—in Europe.”
“You are quite sure, señora? Is it not possible that you, too, have been deceived?”
She shook her head. “No; that is not possible—for I have been in constant communication with him. I received a letter from him only last week.” She smiled sadly. “So you see, Mr. Hawley, there is nothing for you to do.”