“Hong Yo must have, in some way, discovered my presence with the wounded man. Mr. Forrester may have heard it from him.”
“That’s it,” cried Kenyon. “He had been talking with Hong just before. It was after he returned from this talk that he looked through the curtains and ran out. In the midst of his plottings, the blood-horror was strong upon him. He feared that some harm would befall you and the man from Butte, and he was on his way to save you when he disappeared from the rear room.”
“And he did save me—he and you!” She spoke in a lower voice, and he could see a misty trouble in her eyes. “Will you forgive me for what I said that night?” she pleaded, softly. “It was so very, very cruel! It must have cut you to the heart to have me say such a thing to you, and at a moment, too, when you were generously risking, perhaps, your life to help me.”
“It did hurt,” replied he. “It would be foolish for me to deny it. But, then, I realized what your convictions must necessarily be. And so,” smiling, “that eased it, you see.”
“At any rate, I realized, afterwards, what you had done for me, and so began to doubt that you were to be classed among my enemies. When I opened the packet of securities that night, after snatching them from you in front of the safe, I found some letters with your name signed to them.”
“Ah, yes,” said Kenyon with interest. “So you saw them, too?”
“There was something about them, I don’t know what, that caused me to distrust them. That night when you came to the Club, in Mulberry Street, a way of convincing myself as to this suddenly occurred to me.”
“You asked me to write my name in a book,” said Kenyon, quietly. “I remember wondering about that at the time. I was quite confident though that you had a secret motive.”
“The writing was not the same!” she cried, in triumph. “It was nothing at all like that of the letters. And so,” with a laugh, “I was then sure that—that you had not written them—that someone had used your name, that you had spoken the truth that night in the cab when you denied all knowledge of the Austin affair.”
“Clever!” commented Kenyon.