The officer hesitated. "I'm not prepared to say who the man was."
The pulse in her throat beat fast. Her hand was clutching the arm of a chair so tightly that the knuckles stood out white and bloodless.
"You know better. It was Jack Kilmeny," she charged.
"I could tell you only my opinion," he insisted.
"And I know all about it." Moya came to time with her confession promptly, in the fearless fashion characteristic of her. "It was I that sent him to you. It was I that betrayed you to him."
India set her lips to a soundless whistle. Her brother could not keep out of his brown face the amazement he felt.
"I don't wonder you look like that," Moya nodded, gulping down her distress. "You can't think any worse of me than I do of myself."
"Nonsense! If you told him you had a reason. What was it?" India asked, a little sharply.
"No reason that justifies me. He took me by surprise. He had come to get the stolen money and I told him we were returning it to the Fair association. He guessed the rest. Almost at once he left. I saw him take the cañon road for Gunnison."
"You weren't to blame at all," the captain assured her, adding with a rueful smile: "He didn't take you any more by surprise than he did me. I hadn't time to reach for the rifle."