“By whom? To where? That’s the mystery!” Roddy echoed blankly.
“A mystery which must be fathomed. And I will help you,” she said quietly.
“You know the identity of the poor girl,” he said. “How did you come by her photograph?” he asked, a question he had been dying to put to her ever since the previous evening.
She was silent.
“You know more of the affair than you have admitted, Elma,” he suggested in a low voice, his eyes still fixed upon her pale countenance. “Is my surmise correct?”
“It is,” she replied in a strange half-whisper. “I have no actual knowledge,” she hastened to add. “But I have certain grim and terrible surmises.”
“You were anxious that my father should not see that photograph last night. Why?”
“Well—well, because I did not wish to—I didn’t wish him to think that I was unduly exciting you by showing you the portrait,” she faltered.
He looked at her, struck by her curious evasiveness.
“And was there no other reason, Elma?” asked the young man in deep earnestness.