"No," he answered, "I did not do the thing for which I suffered. But to prove my innocence is another matter."
"You have not given up the endeavour, I hope."
"No! I have a man at work in England, and I myself make small endeavours. Only the other day I thought that I——" Apparently he remembered something, for he broke off sharply. "But why discuss the affair? It is only one of the world's small injustices which shows that the law, usually right, may go wrong occasionally."
But Helen Yardely was not so easily to be turned aside. Whilst he had been speaking a thought had occurred to her, and now took the form of a question.
"I suppose that the other night when you were waiting for Mr. Ainley, it was on this particular matter that you wished to see him?"
"What makes you think that?" Stane asked quickly.
Helen Yardely smiled. "It is not difficult to guess. You told me last night that you wished to question him on a matter that was important to you. And this matter—Well! it needs no argument."
"It might be something else, Miss Yardely," was the evasive reply.
"Yes, it might be," answered the girl, "but I do not think it is."
Stane made no reply, but sat looking in the fire, and the girl watching him, drew her own conclusion from his silence, a conclusion that was far from favourable to Gerald Ainley. She wondered what were the questions Stane had wished to ask her uncle's secretary; and which, as she was convinced, he had been at such pains to avoid. Was it possible that her rescuer believed that his one-time friend had it in his power to prove his innocence of the crime for which he had suffered? All the indications seemed to point that way; and as she looked at the grave, thoughtful face, and the greying hair of the man who had saved her from death, she resolved that on the morrow, when she reached her uncle's camp, she would herself question Gerald Ainley upon the matter.