Sinclair was smiling very tenderly. "You have forgotten me, Koto. I will take care of both of you, never fear, little woman. I am going with you to her now."
"It is too late now," the girl said. "Numè will have retired when we reach home. Shiku is going to take me home, and to-morrow will you come?"
She rose from her seat, looking more hopeful and happy than when she had first come in.
"You will make it all good again," she said, looking up at him with somewhat of Numè's confidence: "for you are so big."
CHAPTER LIV. SINCLAIR LEARNS THE TRUTH AT LAST.
After Koto had left Sinclair he sat down to think. His brain was whirling, for his thoughts and plans were in confusion. His first impulse had been to go straight to Numè; but he had promised Koto to wait until the following day. Now that he was alone, he suddenly remembered Cleo Ballard. Was he free to go, after all? Could he desert Cleo now while she lay so sick and helpless? His joy in the renewed assurance of Numè's love for him had been suddenly tinged with bitter pain. What could he do?
He slept none through the night. In the morning of the next day he hurried over to the hotel and made his usual enquiries after Cleo's health. Mr. and Mrs. Davis, with Tom, had done their best to prevent him from knowing the cause of Orito's suicide. Various reasons had been suggested; and after the first alarm had worn off, and the bodies had been interred with due ceremony, the excitement subsided somewhat, so that they had hopes of the talk quieting down, and perhaps dying out altogether, without the truth reaching Sinclair's ears; for, knowing him to be her betrothed, there were few who were unkind or unscrupulous enough to tell him.
As Sinclair passed through the hotel corridor on his way to the front door, Fanny Morton came down the wide staircase of the hotel. She stopped him as he was going out.