"That looks like confidence. And then she sent him to take you to Naples to put you out of the way?"
Zillah sighed.
"Tell me. Do you think she could have loved Gualtier?"
"It seems absurd. Any thing like love between those two is impossible."
"It's my full and firm conviction," said Obed Chute, after deep thought, "that this Gualtier gained your friend's affections, and he has been the prime mover in this. Both of them must be deep ones, though. Yet I calculate she is only a tool in his hands. Women will do any thing for love. She has sacrificed you to him. It isn't so bad a case as it first looked."
"Not so bad!" said Zillah, in wonder. "What is worse than to betray a friend?"
"When a woman betrays a friend for the sake of a lover she only does what women have been engaged in doing ever since the world began. This Gualtier has betrayed you both--first by winning your friend's love, and then by using her against you. And that is the smart game which he has played so well as to net the handsome figure of £30,000 sterling--one hundred and fifty thousand dollars--besides that balance of £1200 and upward--six thousand dollars more."
Such was Obed Chute's idea, and Zillah accepted it as the only true solution. Any other solution would force her to believe that Hilda had been a hypocrite all her life--that her devotion was a sham, and her love a mockery. Such a thing seemed incredible, and it seemed far more natural to her that Hilda had acted from some mad impulse of love in obedience to the strong temptation held out by a lover. Yes, she thought, she had placed herself in his power, and did whatever he told her, without thinking of the consequences. The plot, then, must be all Gualtier's. Hilda herself never, never, never could have formed such a plan against one who loved her. She could not have known what she was doing. She could not have deliberately sold her life and robbed her. So Zillah tried to think; but, amidst these thoughts, there arose the memory of that letter from Naples--that picture of the voyage, every word of which showed such devilish ingenuity, and such remorseless pertinacity in deceiving. Love may do much, and tempt to much, she thought; but, after all, could such a letter have emanated from any one whose heart was not utterly and wholly bad and corrupt? All this was terrible to Zillah.
"If I could but redress your wrongs," said Obed, one day--"if you would only give me permission, I would start to-morrow for England, and I would track this pair of villains till I compelled them to disgorge their plunder, and one of them, at least, should make acquaintance with the prison hulks or Botany Bay. But you will not let me," he added, reproachfully.
Zillah looked at him imploringly.