"Even at the sacrifice of your own feelings?"
"What do you mean?"
"Let me go back a minute. Yesterday you made a plucky effort to serve your friend, you gave money for a lawyer to defend him, you even said you would come forward and testify in his favor if it became necessary."
"Ah, the girl has seen you?"
"More than that, she has seen M. Kittredge at the prison. And I am sorry to tell you that your generous purposes have accomplished nothing. He refuses to accept your money and——"
"I told you he didn't love me," she interrupted with a touch of bitterness.
"We must have better evidence than that, just as we must have better evidence of his innocence than your testimony. After all, you don't know that he did not fire this shot, you could not see through the wall, and for all you can say, M. Kittredge may have been in Number Seven."
"I suppose that's true," admitted Pussy dolefully.
"So we come back to the question of motive; his love for you or his hatred of the Spaniard might be a motive, but if we can prove that there was no such love and no such hatred, then we shall have rendered him a great service and enormously improved his chances of getting out of prison. Do you follow me?"
"Perfectly. But how can we prove it?"