"You don't mean—" she began.
"I mean that this is to help me protect a dear friend of yours and of mine. I shouldn't have told you this if it hadn't been necessary. It's as hard for me as it is for you, Rose. There's a great deal at stake. Innocent people will suffer if I'm unable to manage this with full knowledge of all the facts. You think back, six years ago last spring, and tell me whether you have any knowledge, no matter how indefinite, as to where that letter was written."
"You say," she began haltingly, "there's a friend of mine that I could help if I knew anything about your letter? You'll have to tell me who it is."
"I'd rather not do that; I'd rather not mention any names, not even to you."
She was drying her eyes with her handkerchief. Her brows knit, she bent her head for an instant, and then stared at him in bewilderment and unbelief, and her lips trembled.
"You don't mean my friend—my beautiful one!—not the one who picked me up out of the dirt—" She choked and her slender frame shook—and then she smiled wanly and ended with the tears coursing down her cheeks. "My beautiful one, who took me home again and kissed me—she kissed me here!" She touched her forehead as though the act were part of some ritual, then covered her eyes.
"You don't mean"—she cried out suddenly,—"you don't mean it's that!"
"No; it's not that; far from that," replied Dan sadly, knowing what was in her mind.
He went out and closed the door upon her. He called Mrs. Owen on the telephone and told her he would be up immediately. Then he went back to Rose.
"It was like this, Mr. Harwood," said the girl, quite composed again. "I knew him—pretty well—you know the man I mean. After that Transportation Committee work I guess he thought he had to keep his hand on me. He's like that, you know. If he thinks anybody knows anything on him he watches them and keeps a tight grip on them, all right. You know that about him?"