'Well, Hawtrey, I congratulate you,' he said, when he had finished. 'Those letters are sufficient to prove to any unprejudiced person that Dorothy has been perfectly innocent throughout the whole business. It is a pity the birds had flown before Hampton arrived there. Even putting everything else aside, I would have given something to see that woman who humbugged me so completely. What will our young lady say now when she hears that it is Hampton who has thus cleared her? By the way, he writes as if it were a mere accident, his having discovered them.'
'I fancy he writes in that style because he has no doubt that she will see the letter. There is the letter Danvers sent me with the enclosure. Hampton seems to be just as obstinate about the matter as Dorothy is.'
Mr. Singleton read the letter with many grunts of disapprobation.
'Why couldn't he be satisfied with what he has done?' he exclaimed, when he had finished the letter. 'He had got enough evidence to satisfy any reasonable people; now he must needs go chasing them all over America, and as likely as not get shot for his pains. Why didn't he write over and ask whether that was not sufficient?'
'Because if he had done so, Singleton, he might never have been able to pick up the clue again. The evidence he has got may not be absolutely conclusive, but undoubtedly it will be very valuable. These affidavits prove conclusively that there was on a certain day a woman staying in a New York Hotel who was so like Dorothy that my daughter's portrait was believed by several people who had seen the woman to be hers. It could also be proved that she and the man with her had just come from Hamburg. But you see it does not in any way connect this woman with the robbery. There is the weak point of the business. The evidence is enough, as you say, to convince reasonable people; but as these shopmen are all ready to swear to Dorothy, the fact that we have found a woman exactly like her, but whom we cannot produce, is scarcely a satisfactory proof from a legal point of view that she is innocent. However, we can talk that over presently; we had better join the others; Dorothy will be wanting to hear the news. Be careful what you say; we may both think that Ned Hampton's views are foolish, but we are bound to respect them.'
Mr. Singleton made no reply, and mentally resolved that if it were necessary he would speak about it, whether or no.
'I am not going to see the young fool throw away his chances like that,' he said to himself; 'he does not know what has been going on here—that Dorothy has been within an ace of accepting some one else. All this foolery of his shows that he really cares for her. If he had not done so he would simply have laughed at her nonsense.'
They met the girls coming towards them.
'You have been an unconscionable time, father, I am burning with impatience to know how it has all come about.'
'Those papers will tell you, Dorothy. One is an extract from a letter written to Mr. Danvers by Ned Hampton, the others are copies of affidavits sworn in New York.'