“Why wouldn’t you straightforwardly tell me you were innocent, Kane?” asked Avice as they rode home together.
“I couldn’t, dear. I know I was foolish, but the fact of your doubting me even enough to ask me, made me so furious, I couldn’t breathe! Didn’t you know I couldn’t kill Uncle Rowly?”
“I did know it, truly I did, Kane; but I was crazy; I wasn’t myself all those dreadful days!”
“And you won’t be now, if you stay here! I’m going to marry you all up, and take you far away on a long trip, right now, before we hear anything more about Leslie Hoyt and his wickedness!”
“I’d love to go away, Kane; but I can’t be married in such a hurry. Let’s go on a trip, and take Mrs. Black for chaperone, and then get married when I say so!”
This plan didn’t suit Landon so well as his own, but he was coerced into submission by the love of his liege lady, and the trip was planned.
Fibsy was greatly honored and praised. But the peculiar character of the boy made him oblivious to compliments.
“I don’t care about bookays, Miss Avice,” he said, earnestly; when she praised him, “just to have saved Mr. Landon an’ you is enough. An’ to knock the spots out o’ Judge Hoyt! But it’s the game that gets me. The whole detective business! I’m goin’ to be a big one, like Mr. Stone. Gee! Miss Avice, did you catch on to how he ran Judge Hoyt down, the minute I gave him the steer? That’s the trick! Oh, he’s a hummer, F. Stone is! An’ he’s goin’ to let me work with him, sometimes!”
Fibsy spoke the last words in a hushed, rapt tone, as if scarcely daring to believe them himself.
“But I say,” he went on suddenly; “what about that guy as telephoned and called Mr. Trowbridge ‘Uncle’?”