“I wanted to ask you to help me at a pinch where I am unable to help myself,” he continued. “But before I come to the helping part, I’d like to tell you just where I stand to-night. May I do that?”
Her “Yes” was no more than a whisper, but he heard it and took his cue promptly, beginning in the midst.
“At first I thought Brant did it, as a matter of course. Everything pointed that way, and the mere fact of his giving himself up seemed as good as a confession. But afterward when I began to dig a little deeper into it I wasn’t so sure; in fact, I came to believe that your brother had done it, and that Brant was trying to screen him—to—well, to stand in the way until your brother had a chance to run for it. You mustn’t mind my saying these things, because they have to be said before I can come around to the present state of affairs.”
Again she gave him liberty. “It does not matter; nothing matters any more.”
“Thanks. Well, about that time I had a talk with Brant, and I’m ashamed to say he made me fly the track again—made me believe he did do it, after all; and I went on believing it till one day about a week ago, when Harry Antrim told me what you told him Brant had told you. That is pretty badly tangled up, but I guess you know what I am driving at.”
“Mr. Brant told me he was innocent—is that what you mean?” she asked.
“That’s it precisely, and I just put it up that he would come pretty near telling you the truth; that you are the one person in the world he wouldn’t lie to. So I had to climb over the fence again, and—well, to cut a long story short, I haven’t had ten hours’ sleep in the last sixty-odd; and—and to-morrow is the day.”
She caught despairingly at the straw, as any poor drowning one might. “O Mr. Jarvis, what have you done? what can be done?”
“I don’t know that I have done anything. I’ve been desperately tangled up in two theories, and one of them is no good unless I can get rid of the other. Miss Langford, you will know how hard pressed I am when you hear what I came over here to ask you, but you must let to-morrow be my excuse for anything and everything. You have seen your brother and have been with him more or less every day since this thing happened: is he the one who ought to be counting the hours as George Brant is probably counting them this evening?”
The early dusk of the winter day was beginning to prick out the arc lights in the downtown circuits, and she stopped to turn back; and so facing him she gave him his answer: