“What? Oh, you poor child! The damned rascals! But you shouldn’t have come here. Don’t you know that the ‘Eye’ will watch every move you make? It takes the clever woman to do the wrong thing, every time!”
He went to the window and peered out, then clenched his teeth, and raising his arm brought it down violently.
“They can’t put me in prison, can they?”
He pressed his finger to a bell. “I must read what they have to say. They are very wary, and never would have printed such a story unless they had had a good deal of circumstantial evidence. But they will need a terrible lot to convict you. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, how can you be so cool?”
“Some one has to be cool, my dear girl. If you cannot think I must think for you.” A man has not much sentiment at that hour of the morning; still, Steele had sympathy in his nature, and was profoundly disturbed.
The servant came up with the newspapers, and Steele ordered coffee and rolls from the restaurant below. He threw himself into a chair, opened the “Eye,” and read the story through deliberately, word for word, while Patience walked nervously up and down the room. When he had finished he laid the newspaper on the table.
“It’s a damned bad case,” he said.
“You don’t believe I did it, do you?”
He looked at her for a moment with his peculiarly searching gaze. “No,” he said, “you didn’t do it. You’d be even more interesting if you had. But that’s not the question. We’ve got to make others believe you didn’t do it. The first thing for you to do is to go directly back to Peele Manor. Tell them you came up to see Miss Merrien and to engage rooms. Anything you like—only go back there and wait. If you are arrested, it must be from there, and there must be no suggestion of fear on your part—you must brace up and carry it off.”