"You're here! I missed you," he said.
"Barney, what is it?" I cried. To wait for him to put what he had to say into words seemed suddenly next to impossible.
"I don't know wot it is, sir, but it's trouble," he said doggedly. "She guv me a letter for ye, and here it is."
I tore it open, and behind the incoherent words I seemed to hear Jean's serious, appealing voice:
"DEAR MR. HILTON:--I just must write to you, because I couldn't bear it if you should ever think back and feel hurt because I hadn't. I can't tell you all about it, but I want you to remember that I have a reason, a very important reason, for what I am going to do. I can't explain, but it is on account of Gene. You will know afterwards what I mean.
"But there is one other thing I want to tell you. I have just found out that Minnie told you she saw Gene leave the house that night, as she was coming in. That is a mistake,--I didn't tell her so, because I didn't know what difference it might make. But Gene was fast asleep on the couch in the library when Minnie and I came into the house (and that was three o'clock) so if she saw someone going off by the side door just before, it wasn't Gene. You see, it was this way. When I ran back to speak to the girl I thought was Minnie, I found it wasn't Minnie but a friend of hers who works in the next house, and she said Minnie had gone out but would be right back, so I went into the back entry and waited for her, because I wouldn't go to Mrs. Whyte's when she was having a party. And Minnie didn't come till three. When we got in I saw a light in the library, and I went in, and there was Gene asleep. I kissed him very softly but I didn't wake him up, because you know how boys are, wanting their sisters to be so awfully dignified. And though I was perfectly safe and comfortable waiting beside the refrigerator, it wasn't exactly dignified, and Minnie was scared to death about being found out. So I didn't wake Gene. And it has been a great comfort ever since to me to remember how peaceful he looked, because that shows he felt innocent in his mind and not with a guilty conscience to keep him awake like Lady Macbeth.
"I can't say anything more, because I have promised over and over again not to say a thing about the plan to save Gene, but I will just say this,--If you should happen to hear that I was married, will you please, please understand and believe that it was to help Gene, and that of course I must do anything for him.
"Yours faithfully" (a blot made it look like "tearfully"),
"Jean Benbow."
It was incoherent enough (except for the part about Gene, which I put aside in my mind to think out later,) but one thing seemed clear,--that she was married or about to be married, and that she had been lured into this madness by some delusion that in this way she was going to be able to help her brother. I glanced at the envelope. It had not been through the mails.