“Perhaps you know me. I am Doctor Millar.”
“Why, yes!” exclaimed Burton, looking him in the face for the first time. “I have often heard my father speak of you.”
“Yes?” said the doctor. “And what is your name?”
“Raymond Burton.” The words were out before, with a gasp of surprise, he realised that he had revealed his identity. But it was now too late to recall them, he must face it through.
“Not a son of John Burton’s, of Plainville?” asked the doctor, a new interest leaping into his eyes.
“The same—the only son.”
“Well, well. I knew John Burton when I was a shanty doctor on the Ottawa, and have known him ever since. In the earlier days here, when doctor’s drives were longer than they are now, and we didn’t ride on rubber either, I have been at his house more than once—but you won’t remember. But—let me see—I hope you won’t think me too personal—I am your father’s friend—you had some—some misunderstanding, did you not? The papers get things so wrong, but——”
There was something in the man’s manner, in his frank, open face and clear, genial eyes that commanded Burton’s confidence. He resolved to make a clean breast of it.
“Yes, I’m in trouble,” he admitted. “A package of two thousand dollars disappeared from my employer’s safe, and I was suspected. I was committed for trial although the evidence against me was very vague. But detectives were put on my trail, and the money was found in my trunk. How it got there you know as well as I, Doctor. But it swept my feet from under me, and now I am beating my way west. I hope to lose my old life entirely, and make a fresh start where this shadow will not follow me.”
The doctor drove furiously for a full mile. Then he slowed up.