"Never mind, honey," said Mollie, trying to steady her voice. "It was hard for you, I know; but I would give anything I own to have made him feel that way about me. I don't care if he did commit murder. I'm for him—strong."
"To be all alone," said Betty as though Mollie had not spoken, "and so heart-hungry that a little sympathy from a stranger——" A sob choked the rest of her sentence. But a moment later she faced the girls with a light of resolve shining in her eyes.
"Girls," she said, "I don't believe Paul Loup is a murderer, and some way or other I'm going to prove it. A man like that just couldn't commit murder. I know it!"
CHAPTER XXII
THE PLAN
Certainly the girls had never expected such startling developments from Mollie's simple little ruse to find out who the mysterious Hermit of Gold Run was. In the beginning it had been something of a lark, and they never dreamed that their interest and curiosity would uncover such a tragedy.
However, they were not at all in sympathy with Betty's conviction that Paul Loup had not really killed his brother.
"I don't see how you get that way, Betty," Grace argued hotly. "We all feel as sorry for the hermit as you do, but we have his own word for it that he really killed his brother."
"He did seem to be pretty sure of it," said Amy, with a quaver in her voice. "When the wind rose last night and wailed around the house, I got all creepy thinking of him alone up in that dreary little shack, living that whole horrible thing over again."