"Let me go there!" she cried, madly. "Let me tell them what he is! He has betrayed me, and publicly in the courtroom I will tell the world what he is. I will pay him for this if it takes my life."
"Calm yourself, dear!" exclaimed Lynde, gently. "There is nothing that you can do against him. Come! You will be summoned to the courtroom in a few minutes for preliminary examination. If you will allow me, I will, of course, act for you; but you must tell me all the evidence there is against you. You must keep nothing from me, for therein lies your only chance. Will you do it, Evelyn?"
She shrunk from him for a moment as though in terror of even the sympathy she read in his eyes; then she sprung forward like a cat and caught him by the arm, lifting her glistening eyes with intense excitement.
"I have your promise that you will marry me!" she cried. "This does not release you. Tell me that is does not?"
His face quivered with the agony that it cost him to speak, but he replied bravely:
"The misfortune of the opposite party never releases one from a promise. I am ready to keep my word when the conditions of our contract shall have expired."
"Then you will do it at once—at once! A will has been found that gives everything your uncle possessed to you. The fortune that millions could not cover is yours, and Leonie is cleared of any complicity in the crime of which she was, in a way, accused. Are you ready to keep your word now?"
"The proofs are not yet in my hands, and even if they were, the fortune to which you refer is not mine. You forget that in the papers which will be brought before the court there will be one showing that my uncle left an heir who can lay a claim before which the strongest will could not stand."
"You mean——"
"I mean the claim of Leonie Cuyler Pyne!"