He read it, and whistled. "Well!" he said; and then, "there's one thing sure; you will not go alone!"
"Why, you don't mean to say I'm to go!" I cried.
He looked inquiringly. "Why not?"
"Oh, but father doesn't even like me to speak her name."
Mr. Dingley coughed. "Quite right, quite right! That is, of course, under ordinary circumstances. But in affairs of this sort, where state's evidence is concerned, we are obliged to lay personal feeling aside. Now from this letter," and Mr. Dingley tapped the little sheet which he held before him, "I gather that the Señora Valencia may have some information concerning this case of ours now going forward. Of course if it's incriminating, the state must have it. On the other hand, if it should tend to exonerate the defendant, of course we shall be very glad."
I murmured, "Oh, yes!" The hope of a possible means of clearing Johnny Montgomery went flushing through me.
If the Spanish Woman had anything to say I knew it would be in his favor. Still, there was something strange about it. "But if she has this information," I asked, "why doesn't she tell it in the court?"
"My dear Miss Ellie, why indeed? We never know why women do things. But it has been my experience in legal cases, and especially in criminal ones, that women will often give evidence in some such high-fantastic way as this, which could never be got out of them through the proper channel,—that is by means of cross-examination, in court. Now she's evidently taken a fancy to tell you something, and I feel it is our duty to see just how much is in it."
"Oh, yes," I said again, but this time more faintly, for when I thought of whom I was to face, some cowardly thing in me wavered, "But are you sure it's—safe?"
Mr. Dingley laughed. "My dear Miss Ellie, we don't live in the dark ages!"