"Cheer up, lad! If we can't untie the knot we'll lose no time cutting the string. There may be some fun in this business before we get through with it."
I began telling him of some of my own experiences, and won him to a cheerier mood. When we came round to the Holbrooks again his depression had passed, and we were on the best of terms.
"But there's one thing we can't get away from, Donovan. I've got to protect Helen; don't you see? I've got to take care of her, whatever comes."
"But you can't take care of her father. He's hopeless."
"I could give him this money myself, couldn't I? I can do it, and I've about concluded that I ought to do it."
"But that would be a waste. It would be like giving whisky to a drunkard. Money has been at the bottom of all this trouble."
Gillespie threw up his hands with a gesture of helplessness.
"I shall undoubtedly lose such wits as I have if we don't get somewhere in this business pretty soon. But, Donovan, there's something I want to ask you. I don't like to speak of it, but when we were coming away from that infernal island, after our scrap with the dago, there were two people walking on the bluff—a man and a woman, and the woman was nearest us. She seemed to be purposely putting herself in the man's way so we couldn't see him. It didn't seem possible that Helen could be there—but?"
He clearly wished to be assured, and I answered at once:
"I saw them; it couldn't have been Helen. It was merely a similarity of figure. I couldn't distinguish her face at all. Very likely they were Port Annandale cottagers."