"Do you know who he was, this man?" Vine asked.
"I do not," she answered, "but I can guess who his employers are."
"And so can I," Vine said grimly. "It seems to me that you are a very plucky young lady, Miss Longworth."
"Not at all," she answered. "What I have done, I have done for the sake of reward."
"Will you name it?" he asked.
"I want that paper to take back to my uncle," she said. "Stella stole it from me brutally, and unless I can get it back again, my uncle is going to send me back to the little farmhouse where I came from, and is going to leave off helping my people. I want that paper back, Mr. Vine, and you must give it to me."
He looked at her with utterly impassive face.
"I am afraid, Miss Longworth," he said, "that I must disappoint you. If I gave you back that paper, it would go into the hands of one of the most unprincipled men in America. It is not only your uncle whom I dislike, but his methods, his craft, his infernal, incarnate selfishness. He wants this paper as a whip to hold over other people. He obtained it by subtlety. The means by which it was taken from him, although I had nothing to do with them, were on the whole justified. I cannot give it back to you, Miss Longworth. I have not made up my mind yet what to do with it, and I certainly have no friendship for the men whom it implicates; but all the same, for the present it must remain in my possession."
"Do you know," she reminded him, "that I have saved your life to-night?"
He laughed softly.