Florence sprang to her feet. “No loss!” she cried. “How can you say that? You have acknowledged that you are a gambler and a liar—why not finish the story and confess your crime?”
“Crime, Florence! What do you mean?”
Her lips curled
“You do not know what I mean?”
“No, as God hears me, I do not. You accuse me—of what?”
She felt that the crux was reached. “Did you not know when the check for five hundred dollars came back to my father's bank that it had been raised to five thousand dollars?”
The Captain reeled, and came near falling. He clutched at the palm tree which sustained him until he regained his footing.
“My God! And you have thought me the thief!”
“What else could I think?”
“I can't understand.... I met Col. Spencer in Boston—those birds of prey always follow their victims, and gave him the check, receiving two hundred dollars in return. He must have—and yet I cannot believe he would do such a thing. He is in London now. To-morrow I will go and find him.”