"I hope you are right, little girl," he said at last, when she had finished and was looking at him earnestly. "I'd like to believe you were right——"
"But you can't?" she finished for him, trying to stifle the disappointment in her heart.
"No, I can't," he answered truthfully. "When a man is so sure of his crime that he flees his own country, gives up money and fame to escape the law, you may be pretty sure that his crime was a real one."
"But, Allen, you don't know the man," Betty pleaded, pretty close to tears in the bitterness of her disappointment. "No one could make the kind of music he does and be truly wicked. I wish you could have met him. I think you would have tried a little harder to help him."
"I'm willing to help him, if I can," Allen answered gently, feeling that he would be almost willing to step into this poor musician's place if he might have Betty plead for him as she had just done for the other. "What is it you would like me to do?"
Then suddenly the great idea popped full grown into Betty's head.
"I have it!" she cried. "Why not write to Paul Loup's manager in New York and ask him for particulars?"
"Capital!" replied Allen approvingly, while the girls looked at their Little Captain admiringly. "If anybody ought to be able to give us information, he surely is the one."
"And, Allen," begged Betty, reining her horse close to Allen and laying a timid hand on his arm, "you won't even whisper a word of what we've told you—not for your foolish old law, or anything else?"
"Of course not," said Allen, smiling at her. "We have to give the poor fellow his chance."