The man’s searching eyes were not seeking those secrets which might help his official capacity. Other feelings were stirring.
“Why? Because Charlie is a weak, sick creature, deserving all the pity and help the strong can give him. Because he is a gentle, ailing man who has only contrived to earn the contempt of most, for his weakness, and the blame of those who are strong enough to help. Because he is, for all his weaknesses, an—honest man.”
Fyles gazed up at the house on the hillside again, and Kate’s anxious eyes watched him.
“Is that all?” he inquired presently. Nor could there be any mistake as to the thought behind the question.
A dash of recklessness, that recklessness which her sister had deplored the absence of, now drove Kate headlong.
“No. It is not all,” she cried. “For five years I have been striving to help him to escape from the demon which possesses him. Oh, and I know how hopeless it has all been. I love Charlie, Mr. Fyles. I love him as though he were my brother, or even my own son. I would do anything in the world to save him, and I tell you frankly, openly, if the police seek to fix any crime this valley is accused of upon him, I will strive, by every possible means, whether right or wrong, to defeat their ends.”
The woman’s face was aglow with reckless courage. Her eyes were shining with an enthusiasm which the man before her delighted in. All her defiance of him, of the law, only made her appeal the more surely. But he was not thinking of her words. He was thinking of her beauty, her courage, while he repeated her words mechanically.
“Your brother—or even your own son?”
“Yes, yes,” Kate cried. Then she caught a sharp breath, and a deep flush suffused her cheeks and brow. The significance of the man’s thoughtful words and tone had come home to her. She knew he was not thinking of anything else she had said. Only of her regard for that other man.