“I may not be,” said Landon, solemnly; “there is little hope as things stand now, except through Hoyt’s cleverness and,—well, shrewdness.”
“Kane, why should it require shrewdness to get you acquitted? Why, doesn’t your innocence speak for itself?”
“Am I innocent?”
And then the warden had to tell them the time was up, and Avice had to go away with that strange speech and that strange look on Kane’s face, indelibly impressed on her memory.
“Am I innocent?” If he were, why not say so; and if he were not, why not declare it to her and tell her the circumstances, which must have been such as to force him to the deed.
But out in the sunshine, outside that awful chill of the gloomy jail, Avice’s soul expanded to her new knowledge like a flower. Kane loved her! All other good in the world must follow! Suddenly she knew he was innocent! She fought back the thought that she knew it because she knew he loved her. She knew he would be freed! And fought back the thought that she knew it because she knew he was hers.
From an apathetic, hopeless inaction, she suddenly sprang to activity. She would find a way to save him without Hoyt’s help; then she would be free of her promise to the clever lawyer.
But how to go about it? It was one thing to feel the thrill of determination, the power of an all-conquering love, and quite another to accomplish her set purpose.
Hoyt came in the evening. With the canniness of her new-found love, Avice approached the subject in a roundabout way.
“I saw Kane this afternoon,” she began.