“Ah!” and a look of intelligence came into his face. “And when was she here last?”
“Less than an hour ago.”
XVIII
KENYON SHOWS HIS METAL
“He is a young man of quick observation and sure judgment.
And once he has made up his mind, he acts like lightning.”
—Extract from a letter of Nunez.
For a moment Dallas Gilbert and Steele Kenyon stood looking into each other’s face in silence; each was reading a suspicion akin to their own.
“I’m inclined to think that Anna has the packet,” stated Kenyon, slowly.
“I am sure of it,” cried the girl. “Oh, I have always hated myself for not believing in her! She seemed so child-like in some things, and she is so clinging and pretty.”
“Ah! Then there has always been a sort of distrust of her?”
“Yes. I could not make up my mind, at times, that she was quite sincere; I often thought that I detected a hidden purpose in her apparently artless questions. Once or twice I have noticed—” But she paused, hesitatingly, then broke out: “But I must not talk this way to you. You do not understand the situation.”