“Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, for your kindness. I assure you you will not regret it.”
“You’re going to save her? You can save my little girl? Oh, Mr. Stone, I beg of you——”
The agonized father broke down completely, and Stone said, kindly:
“Keep up a good heart, Mr. Wheeler. That will help your daughter more than anything else you can do. I assumed that if one of you were guilty the other was shielding the criminal, but your story has straightened out the tangle considerably.”
“Lemme ask something, please,” broke in Fibsy. “Say, Mr. Wheeler, did you see the pistol in Miss Maida’s hands?”
“I can’t say I did or didn’t,” Wheeler replied, listlessly. “I looked only at her face. I know my daughter’s mind so well, that I at once recognized her expression of horror mingled with relief. She had really desired the death of her father’s enemy, and she was glad it had been accomplished! It’s a terrible thing to say of one’s own child, but I’ve made up my mind to be honest with you, Mr. Stone, in the hope of your help. I should have persisted in my own story of guilt, had I not perceived it was futile in the face of your clear-sighted logic and knowledge of the exact circumstances.”
“You did wisely. But say nothing to any one else, for the present. Do not even talk to Miss Maida about it, until I have time to plan our next step. It is still a difficult and a very delicate case. A single false move may queer the whole game.”
“You think, then, you can save Maida—oh, do give a tortured father a gleam of hope!”
“I shall do my best. You know they rarely, if ever, convict a woman—and, too, Miss Wheeler had great provocation. Then—what about self-defence?”
“Appleby threatened neither of us,” Wheeler said. “That can’t be used.”