There was a long silence in the room after Garson's passing. It was broken, at last, by the Inspector, who got up from his chair, and advanced toward the husband and wife. In his hand, he carried a sheet of paper, roughly scrawled. As he stopped before the two, and cleared his throat, Mary withdrew herself from Dick's arms, and regarded the official with brooding eyes from out her white face. Something strange in her enemy's expression caught her attention, something that set new hopes alive within her in a fashion wholly inexplicable, so that she waited with a sudden, breathless eagerness.
Burke extended the sheet of paper to the husband.
“There's a document,” he said gruffly. “It's a letter from one Helen Morris, in which she sets forth the interesting fact that she pulled off a theft in the Emporium, for which your Mrs. Gilder here did time. You know, your father got your Mrs. Gilder sent up for three years for that same job—which she didn't do! That's why she had such a grudge against your father, and against the law, too!”
Burke chuckled, as the young man took the paper, wonderingly.
“I don't know that I blame her much for that grudge, when all's said and done.... You give that document to your father. It sets her right. He's a just man according to his lights, your father. He'll do all he can to make things right for her, now he knows.”
Once again, the Inspector paused to chuckle.
“I guess she'll keep within the law from now on,” he continued, contentedly, “without getting a lawyer to tell her how.... Now, you two listen. I've got to go out a minute. When I get back, I don't want to find anybody here—not anybody! Do you get me?”
He strode from the room, fearful lest further delay might involve him in sentimental thanksgivings from one or the other, or both—and Burke hated sentiment as something distinctly unprofessional.