"I don't know."
"Neither do I. But we've got to find him. There's no trace of him. But as for Don, the boy, it's a trail, a plain one, and it leads——" He threw out his hands widely, as though reluctant to name the truth.
"But," he went on, "if he isn't guilty someone else is guilty. Under this criminal act in all its phases there lies some cause, of course—there is some criminal, of course. There has been crime committed, a very beastly, brutal sort of crime, almost inhuman—and that was done by some man. If I could put my hand on that man, why then——"
"It would mean life and happiness to me. It would mean satisfaction to you?"
"More than that," he smiled. "It would mean the life of your boy—many years yet for you and him together—once I'd have said maybe it might mean six years in the United States Senate for me. I don't know—I can't tell. The chances now are rather that even if I clear the boy, it means I'll have to close up this office and go somewhere else to hunt a law practice. But we'll take our chances."
"You are a great man, Horace Brooks," said Aurora Lane; and there was a sort of reverence in her tone. "Even after what has been between us, I can say that. Oh, I so much like—I so much admire a man who is not afraid, and who doesn't parley and weigh and dicker with himself when it comes to any hard decision. I like a brave man, a good man. You'll understand."
He raised a hand, a large hand, nervous, full-veined, gnarled, awkward, a hand never in all his life to be freed from toil's indelible imprint.
"Please don't," said he.
"But how can I say what I want?" said she. "I've always wanted to pay all my debts—that's to make up for all my faults, don't you see? I must be scrupulous—because——"
"Yes," said he, "I see. I've seen that for more than twenty years, ever since I've known you. Because that's true of you, and is true of so few women, so very few, is why I wished last night—that you were a widow!