"But how?" asked Carlita, hoarsely, her interest at piteously low ebb.
"Telegraph to Stolliker that you have the proof."
"Will you write it out for me? I feel so incapable, so helpless."
Jessica did not wait for any instructions, but went at once to the desk and wrote rapidly:
"Have every proof you seek of guilt of man we suspect in my possession. Obtain extradition papers at once, and return here without loss of time. Let me hear when this is received."
And then with only the assistance from Carlita of setting down the numbers in an apathetic way on a telegraph blank as she hunted them out, Jessica prepared it for transmission.
She did not leave Carlita alone after that, but tortured her with ways and means of completing her revenge, until it seemed to the poor, unhappy child that she should go mad under the sound of the well-modulated, musical voice. And yet she would not have been left alone for worlds. It seemed to her that in solitude madness lay, while longing for it with all her heart.
If you have ever suffered from some terrible shock, you will perfectly understand such inconsistency.
It was almost twelve o'clock that night when Stolliker's answer arrived, and even to send it then he had been forced to bribe the operator to open the office.
Carlita's fingers trembled so that she could not hold the volume to search out the meaning of the figures, but once more Jessica came to her aid.