“Then tell me about yourself. What would you have done if you hadn’t found a readymade Englishman on the bridal train?”
“Heaven only knows! Committed suicide, I think. I may have to come to that yet,” she said dismally. “Oh, dear! The further it goes, the worse it gets. You’ve helped me out, for the present, but—”
“Then let me help you out some more,” he urged. “Murder, arson, forgery, bigamy, anything you wish. I’m an outlaw, anyway, and a crime or two makes no difference to me.” Underneath his lightness, she divined the deeper wish to be of service.
“Take off your disguise,” she said quietly, “I want to look at the real you.”
He obeyed, and endured the scrutiny of her intent eyes, smiling.
“Yes,” she decided. “You’d be a real friend. I could trust you. And I want to. Oh, I do want to. I’m in an awful mess.”
“Probably it isn’t nearly as bad as it looks. Trot it out, and let’s examine it.”
“But it isn’t my secret, alone. I’ve got a—a partner.”
“The ‘wicked partner’?”
“She isn’t wicked.”