Reassured, Maida went on. “Perhaps I can’t be believed now, after my previous insistence on my guilt, but God knows it is the truth; I am utterly innocent of the crime.”
“I believe it,” said Fleming Stone. “There was little evidence against you, except your own confession. Now you’ve retracted that it only remains for me to find the real criminal.”
“Can you,” cried Fibsy excitedly, “can you, F. Stone?”
“Don’t you know which way to look, Terence?”
“I do—and I don’t—” the boy murmured; “oh, lordy! I do—and—I don’t!”
“But there’s another matter to be agreed upon,” said Maida, who had not at all regained her normal poise or appearance. Her face was white and her eyes blurred with tears. But she persisted in speech.
“I want it understood that I am engaged to marry Mr. Keefe,” she said, not looking at Jeffrey at all. “I announce my engagement, and I desire him to be looked upon and considered as my future husband.”
“Maida!” came simultaneously from the lips of her father and Allen.
“Yes, that is positive and irrevocable. I have my own reasons for this, and one of them is”—she paused—“one very important one is, that Mr. Keefe knows who shot Mr. Appleby, and can produce the criminal and guarantee his confession to the deed.”
“Wow!” Fibsy remarked, explosively, and Fleming Stone stared at the girl.