"I love you."
"You love me," she repeated mechanically.
I rose, still holding the cloak in my arms, and spoke vehemently. "Of course you must have seen for days that I love you. I came here because I fell in love with your photograph, and because I found this." I shook the cloak. "Yes! Can you not understand that I desired to save you."
"To save me. From what?"
"From arrest. Had anyone but myself found the cloak you would have been in prison long, long ago. But I told no one about my discovery. I hid the cloak in my portmanteau and came here to seek an explanation. I knew that you would be able to exculpate yourself."
"Then you needed an explanation?" she asked in low tones.
"Only that I might learn how to save you. I needed no explanation to assure me that you are innocent. For a moment I had my doubts, when Miss Destiny spoke to me, yesterday----"
Gertrude interrupted with a cry and the scarlet blood flushed her cheeks swiftly. "Aunt Julia has been speaking to you?"
"I have been speaking to Aunt Julia. Listen. I saw long ago that your aunt was not your friend, and I feared lest she should make mischief. I therefore called to see her yesterday, so that I might learn how much she knows. She told me----"
"I know what she told you," interrupted Gertrude again, and flung back her head; "she came to me this morning, as I explained, and said all manner of dreadful things."