“You mean that he is a multimillionaire, if he chooses to claim his own. If I were to marry him, people might say he was throwing himself away on a poor girl.”
“I don’t think it would matter what people might say.”
“It would matter a great deal to me,” she interrupted, with decision. “I am getting a living by teaching music. My father teaches the violin. We both play when we get a chance. And—and—sometimes the places we play at are not at all—at all nice.”
“Poor girl!” murmured Nick, below his breath. Then, aloud: “We all have to do things we don’t like sometimes, Miss Silvius. I can assure you, knowing Howard Milmarsh as well as I do, that if he asked you to marry him, he will insist on your doing it—providing, of course, that you care for him.”
“I do,” burst out the girl involuntarily. Then she blushed again. “I did not mean to say that. I’ve told him I shall never marry, and I intend to keep my word.”
“No doubt. Girls always intend to keep their word when they make a rash assertion of that kind,” said Nick, with a laugh. “You say you haven’t seen him since the night of the fire?”
“No. We were all so much excited, and my poor father, who had rheumatism, was in such a dangerous state, that I was only too glad that some of the neighbors took us in and cared for us. When I came to myself, and could make inquiries about Mr. Gordon, no one knew where he was. I couldn’t find any one who remembered seeing him after he came down the ladder, except that a policeman said he was hurt.”
“I took him away in my motor car,” said the detective quietly.
“You did? And is he well? Can you take me to him? Is he here, in your house?”
“Not at present. But what made you think of coming here to-day? Why did you connect me with the disappearance of this—er—Mr. Gordon?”