The girl looked at her for a moment in a frenzied way, and then turned aside, biting her lips to keep back the actual confession that had rushed up to them.
"It is blackmail," repeated Mr. Wrandall miserably.
"In the most diabolical form," augmented Carroll. "The worst of it is, Wrandall, we can't stop his tongue unless we fairly choke him with greenbacks. All he has to do is to give the confounded yellow journals an inkling of his suspicions, and the job is done. It seems to be pretty well understood that the crime was not committed by a person in the ordinary walks of life, but by one who is secure in the protection of mighty influences. There are those who believe that his companion was one of the well-known and prominent young matrons in the city, many of whom were at one time or another interested in him in a manner not at all complimentary. Smith suggests—mind you, he merely suggests—that the person who was to have met Wrandall in the country that night was so highly connected that she does not dare reveal herself, although absolutely innocent of the crime. Or, it is possible on the other hand, he says, that she may consider herself extremely lucky in failing to keep her appointment and thereby alluring him to take up with another, after she had written the letter breaking off the engagement,—said letter not having been received by him because it had fallen into the hands of his wife. Do you see? It is ingenious, isn't it?"
"What is to be done?" groaned Mr. Wrandall, in a state of collapse. He was sitting limply back in the chair, crumpled to the chin.
"The sanest thing, I'd suggest," said Booth sarcastically, "is the capture of the actual perpetrator of the deed."
"But, confound them," growled Carroll, "they say they can't."
"I shall withdraw my offer of reward," proclaimed the unhappy father, struggling to his feet. "I never dreamed it could come to such a pass as this. You DO believe me, don't you, Sara, my child—my daughter? God hear me, I never—"
"Oh," said she cuttingly, "you, at least, are innocent, Mr. Wrandall."
He looked at her rather sharply.
"The confounded fellow is coming to see me to-morrow," he went on after a moment of indecision. "I shall be obliged to telephone to the city for my attorney to come out also. I don't believe in taking chances with these scoundrels. They—"