Leslie spoke aside to Burton.
"What can we do? It isn't this thing only; this is just an instance. You don't know how horrible it is to have the feeling that some enemy is watching you in the dark. And my father is not practical,--you see that. We have no friends left!"
"That is not so," he said quickly.
"You mean that you will help him?" she asked eagerly. "Oh, if you would! There is no one to whom I can turn for advice."
It was not exactly what he had meant, but he recognized at once that it was what he should have meant. If ever there were two babes in the wood, needing the kind attentions of a worldly and unoccupied robin--! Aside from that, if this girl were going to marry into the Overman family, he certainly owed it to Rachel to see that she came with a clean family record, if any efforts that he could make would establish a fact that should have been beyond question from the first.
"Let me be present this evening, when this committee comes," he said, slowly. "I will consider the matter and tell you what I think I can do, after I have seen and heard them."
"Stay and dine with us, then," she said quickly. "That will give me a chance to tell you some of the other things that have happened,--the things that father would like to call coincidences but that I know are all parts of one iniquitous conspiracy."
"Thank you, I shall be glad to," he answered. "If I am going to undertake this case, I certainly want all the facts that have any bearing upon it."
Leslie turned quickly to her mother.
"Mother, Mr. Burton will stay for dinner."