“My whole future is concerned in it, and I mean to lay the ghost forever, or else know the very worst.”
“Spoken like a true man, Joe. Shake hands on that as a bargain. I am, in this matter, hoping to prove your wife’s innocence, but I shall take up any evidence that comes along, and apply it where it belongs.”
“I want you to, old fellow, no matter what the pain it brings.”
“To begin with, you know all my hopes are to the end that Lillian may prove to be as innocent as a babe.”
“Heaven grant it,” Joe groaned.
His tone betokened despair.
The detective judged from this that his friend must have made some discovery since last they met.
“At the same time, Joe, you know as it looks at present, things are decidedly against your wife.”
“I try to deceive myself, Eric, into the belief that it is not so, but I cannot, I cannot. She shall have a fair trial—I will give her the advantage of every doubt, and then—”
He could not finish the sentence.