“I do,” she affirmed, but she didn’t look me in the face as she said it.
I ought to have been satisfied, but I wasn’t, for, in spite of her denial, something forced me still to believe she had them, and looking back now, I think it was her manner. I stood reflecting for a minute, and then requested, “Please stay where you are for a moment.” Leaving her, I went over to Fred.
“Mr. Cullen,” I said, “Miss Cullen, rather than be searched, has acknowledged that she has the letters, and says that if we men will go into the hut she’ll get them for me.”
He rose at once. “I told my father not to drag her in,” he muttered, sadly. “I don’t care about myself, Mr. Gordon, but can’t you keep her out of it? She’s as innocent of any real wrong as the day she was born.”
“I’ll do everything in my power,” I promised. Then he and Hance went into the cabin, and I walked back to the culprit.
“Miss Cullen,” I said, gravely, “you have those letters, and must give them to me.”
“But I told you—” she began.
To spare her a second untruth, I interrupted her by saying, “I trapped your brother into acknowledging that you have them.”
“You must have misunderstood him,” she replied, calmly, “or else he didn’t know that the arrangement was changed.”
Her steadiness rather shook my conviction, but I said, “You must give me those letters, or I must search you.”