She laughed softly, twisting the brandy glass slowly in her white fingers.
"I know enough of the Hume blood," she said presently, "to make a close guess at the man's character. We are not related, even distantly, for nothing, Mr. Shandon. My mother was a Hume," she added coolly, her manner again reminding the man strangely of Hume himself. "You see, he chose the wrong woman when he cheated me. It's going to be diamond cut diamond now."
Shandon looked at the girl curiously, falling to see what mad hope she could have of regaining rights that were deeded away a year ago, falling as well to find a reason for her coming all these miles to make a confidant of him.
"I usually go about things in my own way," she said after one of her brief pauses. "What I have to say I'll say as it comes to me. In case your cousin Garth returns before I have done you can send him away upon any pretext you choose. Tell him we want to talk privately; that will do as well as anything. Smoke, if you want to," as she saw his eyes go to the mantelpiece where an old black pipe lay. "Maybe it will make you patient during my harangue."
Wayne got his pipe and, lighting it, sat upon the edge of the table looking down at her through the smoke.
"Six months ago," she went on, "I realised that Hume had underpaid me. Why?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I knew his breed. If he offers a dollar for a thing it's worth ten. I made investigations through an agent who came up to Dry Valley from San Francisco. He turned in his bill on time and that was about all. He was an ordinary man and consequently a fool. But, blind as a bat himself, he showed me a little light that set me thinking. A few days ago I came out myself." She snapped her fingers. "It didn't take me that long to get to the bottom of the whole thing."
"What thing?"
"The scheme Hume is promoting on the quiet to put water on the Dry Lands. The water is to come from your river. Are you in on the deal too?"
Her question was as sudden as a sword thrust.
"No," he answered.