As if realizing the seriousness of the chief's tone, the girl's face went very white. Slowly her fingers opened and closed; her eyes studied the water for a moment as if she was trying to fix in her mind the distant shore. Then she slowly raised her head and in a look which included us both said:
“I did say that. But it was a very silly thing to say and it meant nothing. Mr. Warren was alive when I left him and, of course, I know nothing about his death.”
As the girl hesitated, the chief broke in:
“I am not saying you did know anything about his death. I only want to make you see how you placed yourself in a bad position by going away and by the remark you made. Why did you say it?”
The secretary gave a half laugh, though there was a tone of disgust in it.
“It's all very simple. Mr. Warren was a very hard man to work with. He was rushing his book and I was working from ten to twelve hours a day. He paid pretty well, of course, but once in a while he would get mad and then he would sure bawl me out. The afternoon I left we had a little disagreement.”
“What over?” was my question.
The girl gave me a surprised look. Remembering that he had not given my name, the chief introduced me as a friend of Carter's. Then the secretary replied:
“Two things. Mr. Warren had reached the place where he was dictating a chapter about the social and marriage customs of the natives of China.” She paused, half blushed and went on:
“It was pretty frank, that chapter. Finally, he decided I should copy some pages from a book he had. He got the book from one of the cases—a case he kept always locked. It was a pretty rotten book—so rotten that I kicked a bit about copying the two pages. And then he flared up and said that if I did not care to do his work I could quit. And I got mad, and”—she laughed a bit sheepishly—“I guess it was the warm day got us both; anyway I got mad and left. I went to the house, and when I was packing my grip, the more I thought of it the madder I got. That's why I said the foolish thing I did to the housekeeper.”