I slept again, waking to see the curtain at the window I had opened, pushed aside, and a face peering in at me in the cold gray light of morning. It was withdrawn and a hand fell on the door. I looked down at Joey’s tousled head pillowed on my arm. Laying him gently down on the pillow, I arose and took my revolver from my pocket.
“What do you want?” I demanded, throwing open the door.
The man standing there put out his hand quickly. It was Father O’Shan.
“You have come from the Mission?” I gasped.
“Yes.”
“Can you give me news of Wanza, then? Is she at the Mission?”
He took the revolver from my grasp, looked at me curiously, and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Yesterday, when I passed here, I thought I heard a child sobbing. I was too greatly overwrought at the time to attach importance to it. In the night I recalled the boarded over window and I could not rest. I came to investigate.”
He hesitated. I waited, and he came a step closer.
“David Dale,” he said, with evident reluctance, “Wanza Lyttle has confessed to being implicated in the murder of Randall Batterly. I took her to Roselake myself yesterday. She has given herself up. Mrs. Batterly was set at liberty a few hours later.”