CHAPTER XXXIX.
"LOUISE BARNARD'S FRIENDSHIP."
When she has finished her story there is a long silence, then she says, with a suddenness that would have been surprising in any other woman than the one before me:
"You say you have arrested Arch Brookhouse for the shooting of Dr. Bethel. Tell me, is it true that Dr. Bethel is out of danger?"
"He is still in a condition to need close attention and careful medical aid; with these, we think, he will recover."
"I am very glad to know that," she says, earnestly.
"Miss Lowenstein, I have some reason for thinking that you know who is implicated in that grave-robbing business."
"I do know," she answers, frankly, "but not from them. The Brookhouses, father and sons, believed Dr. Bethel to be a detective, and to be candid, so did I. You know 'the wicked flee when no man pursueth.' They construed his reticence into mystery. They fancied that his clear, searching eye was looking into all their secrets. I knew they were plotting against him, but I had told Arch Brookhouse that they should not harm him. When I went down to the cottage with Louise Barnard, I felt sure that it was their work, the grave-robbing.
"Tom Briggs was there, the fiercest of the rioters. Tom had worked about my stable for a year or more, and I thought that I knew how to manage him. I contrived to get a word with him. Did you observe it?"
"Yes, I observed it."