"I'll listen, though it will be useless," she said.
"When I left Honduras, Miss Gilbert, I was a happy man. I had made my pile and was coming home. I had left ten years before because a selfish woman, whom I imagined I loved, jilted me for a wealthier man. That wound had healed, and when I left Honduras, I did not think that I had an enemy in the world, unless it was some poor devil of a disgruntled native workman I had been forced to discharge, or somebody like that.
"I believed those notes on the ship to be in the nature of a jest, or else that somebody was making a mistake. Then troubles began, and I was at a loss to understand them. Next came the murder charge! We will put that aside for the moment, for it seems to be the result of circumstantial evidence and probably has nothing to do with the other affair—merely a coincidence.
"Miss Gilbert, look at me! I want you to believe what I am going to say. You must believe it! In the name of everything I hold sacred, I swear to you that I do not know these foes of mine, or the reason for their enmity!"
"How can I believe that?" she cried. "Why should you ask me to believe such a statement?"
"Because I want some light on this subject, Miss Gilbert, and I am determined to get it. There is some terrible mistake. I am being punished for the fault of some other person."
"Can you not remember back ten years?" she asked.
"Easily. I can live over again the last day I spent in New York ten years ago."
"And the few days before that time?"
"Certainly, Miss Gilbert."