Keith listened, feeling to the full the woman's earnestness, the impossibility of changing her fixed conviction. Hawley had planted his seed deep and well in fruitful soil.
“You make a strong and charming advocate, Miss Maclaire,” he returned, feeling the necessity of saying something. “I should like to have you equally earnest on my side. Yet it will be hard to convince me that 'Black Bart' is the paragon of virtue you describe. I wish I might believe for your sake. Did he also explain how he came into possession of these papers?”
“Oh, yes, indeed; there is no secret about that. They were entrusted to him by an old man whom he discovered sick in Independence, and who died in his rooms three years ago. Mr. Hawley has been searching ever since for the old man's grand-daughter. It is remarkable how he was finally convinced that I was the one.”
“A photograph, was it not?”
A gleam of sudden suspicion appeared in the brown eyes, a slight change in facial expression.
“That was a clue, yes, but far from being all. But why should I tell you this?—you believe nothing I say.”
“I believe that you believe; that you are fully convinced of the justice of your claim. Perhaps it is just, but I am suspicious of anything which Bart Hawley has a hand in. Miss Christie, you really make me wish to retain your friendship, but I cannot do so if the cost includes faith in Hawley. Do you know that is not even his name—that he lives under an alias?”
“Is there anything strange in that out here?” she asked stoutly. “I told you how deeply he regretted his life; that alone would be sufficient cause for him to drop his family name. Did you ever learn his true name?”
He was not sure—only as Neb had reported what Waite had called the man, yet ventured a direct reply.
“Bartlett, I believe—he uses it now as a prefix.”