“My unlooked-for return threw Jimmy entirely out of his reckoning. He had not expected that. All his plans threatened to go wrong at once. He was made desperate by the circumstance. He saw no other way than to make the bold charge he did against me.
“He knew that I would not deny that I had been Nan Drummond.
“He dared even to make use of the name of Bare-Faced Jimmy, claiming cousinship, in order to render his story the more plausible.
“He told near enough to the truth to give everything he said the appearance of reality. Once again he has earned the right to his title of barefaced, for such a barefaced scoundrel and falsifier, never lived or dared to live before.”
Nan paused a moment, and then turned again to her friend Mrs. Remsen.
“That, my dear, is all of my story,” she said. “Much of it you have heard before, for I thank Heaven that before I came into your house to live here as your friend, and to love the stepdaughter who is as dear to you as if she were your own, I told you all of that unhappy past history of mine. I did not come here under false pretenses.”
“No, indeed you did not,” cried Mrs. Remsen, putting her arms around Nan.
Lenore was quietly sobbing her heart out on Nan’s shoulder, and now Nan, with one backward glance toward all who were in the room, led Lenore through a doorway into an adjoining room, and closed the door behind them.
“I have got just a word to say, right here,” said Chick.
“Go ahead, Chick,” said the detective. “We are all expecting to hear from you.”