"Yes, it might be better," Celeste agreed, or seemed to agree. "If you hear anything bearing on—on Charlie's innocence—if they discover that the money was taken by some one else—I wish you would telephone me at once."
"Some one else?" he said, staring blankly. "But you see they have his note. Bradford wanted that to—to show to the rest."
"Yes, I know about the note"—Celeste was turning into the parlor, her eyes averted—"but something else may come up to throw light on even the note."
"Yes, perhaps," he admitted, stupidly, "and in that case I'll 'phone you."
She vanished through the door, and he stalked down the steps into the street. He walked slowly and with a self-imposed limp. He kept his head down.
"Something is wrong with her," he mused, turbulently. "She does not believe it all. She may never be satisfied, and in that case what am I to do? I can't keep this up. It is as unbearable as the other thing from which Charlie saved me. But I must not give in—I must not! He has given me his word of honor never to reveal our compact and never to return. If he is not caught I shall escape. I may lose my wife, but I'll escape."
CHAPTER XII
Two weeks passed by. For the most of the time Charles stayed close in the larger room, which he and Mason now occupied together, with a view to the utmost economy. They had become warm friends. When Charles's funds were almost exhausted Mason received a check for fifty dollars in payment of a debt owed him by a brother-in-law in the West, and Charles had to share it.
Mason never again alluded to the discovery he had made in regard to the trouble Charles was in, excepting once, when they were walking together in a crowded street on the East Side, and he had noticed that Charles seemed to be slightly nervous.