"We are playing at cross purposes quite unnecessarily," protested Archie. "Why not confess just what your interest is in that family? I told you quite plainly at Portsmouth that I had reason to believe I had shot Putney Congdon at Bailey Harbor! But for the courage you put in my heart I should never have done that!"
"If you did that you have ruined everything! A dastardly act for which I hope you will pay the full penalty of the law!"
This was wholly unreasonable and quite beside himself he shook his finger in her face.
"You seem to forget that you advised me to flout the law; to do just the things I have been doing, roving the world, shooting and plundering! There's a policeman at the other end of the platform; call him and turn me over to the authorities!"
She glanced hurriedly in the direction of a policeman who had niched a banana from a bunch providentially exposed to his rapacity on a truck, and was hastily consuming it.
"Maybe he is watching me!" she gasped.
For a young woman who had prescribed outlawry as a cure for obstreperous nerves her alarm was astonishing.
"May I ask, Miss Perry, what reason you have for fearing the authorities?"
"That of course is what you would like to know!" she replied tearfully. "But you know too much! If you have told me the truth your meddlesomeness will have far-reaching consequences too dreadful to think about! Your assumed name tells its own story and convinces me that you have not told the truth. I went aboard that train to look for some one I hoped I might meet, and you know perfectly well why I am here."
He could only stammer a futile expostulation at the gross injustice of this.