CHAPTER XIII
THE SEARCH DETERMINED UPON
For a moment Stephanie Maynard did not take in the tremendous import of the declaration that had just fallen from her lover's lips. For one thing, he had spoken so quietly that she had not at first sensed the meaning. She stared from Harnash to her father in no little bewilderment. Both men watched her keenly; the older curious to know what she would do and say, the younger as one might wait the death sentence of a court.
"I don't understand," she faltered at last. "Did you say that Derrick Beekman-- It's impossible. How could that be?"
"I had him shanghaied by a friend of mine."
"Shanghaied?"
"Yes. After the dinner broke up we stopped at an uptown place and"--Harnash hesitated. It was bad enough to compass the main fact, but the necessary admission of the sordid, unlovely details seemed to make his turpitude much greater.
"Yes, go on. What then?"
"Yes. I'm curious to know how you did it, too," put in Maynard.
"I persuaded him to take a drink. He was utterly unsuspicious. It was easy--"