"Please—please!" he answered in quick protest. "Believe me it is a pleasure to serve you, and with me a few days do not matter. I shall have enough of my own company before long."
"You live alone?" asked Helen.
"I have an old Indian for companion."
"And what do you do, if you will permit me to be so curious?"
"Oh," he laughed. "I hunt, I pursue the elusive nugget, and I experiment with vegetables. And this winter I am going to start a trapping line."
"But you are rich!" she cried. "You have no need to live in exile."
"Yes," he answered with sudden bitterness. "I am rich. I suppose Ainley told you that. But exile is the only thing for me. You see a sojourn in Dartmoor spoils one for county society."
"Oh," she cried protestingly, "I cannot believe that you—that you——"
"Thank you," he said as the girl broke off in confusion. "I cannot believe it myself. But twelve good men and true believed it; an expert in handwriting was most convincing, and if you had heard the judge——"
"But you did not do it, Mr. Stane, I am sure of that."