"I loved him as much as if he were my own father," she cried, "and it's my fault that he's dead. I made him go!"
"No, Polly, it is not your fault," I said decisively. "It was a thing which no one could foresee and no one could help."
She waited a moment trying to steady her voice, then she looked up pleadingly in my face.
"Radnor is innocent; tell me you believe it."
"I am sure he is innocent," I replied.
"Then you can clear him—you're a lawyer. I know you can clear him!"
"You may trust me to do my best, Polly."
"I hate Jim Mattison!" she exclaimed, with a flash of her old fire. "He swears that Rad is guilty and that he will prove him so. Rad may have done some bad things, but he's a good man—better than Jim Mattison ever thought of being."
"Polly," I said with a touch of bitterness, "I wish you might have realized that truth earlier. Rad is at heart as splendid a chap as ever lived, and his friends ought never to have allowed him to go astray."
She looked away without answering, and then in a moment turned back to me and held out her hand.