“I stole it from some one else.” Phil’s voice was almost a whisper. The accompanying silence caused him to sit erect and look up quickly at the girl beside him. She had recoiled, and there was an expression of horror in her eyes.
“Stolen from some one else?” she breathed incredulously. “How could you?”
Phil smiled at her earnestness, and Helen gave a sigh of relief.
“That wasn’t friendly!” she exclaimed in a hurt voice. “How can you jest when you know how interested I am?”
“I took it from some one who had obtained it by force,” he explained quickly. “Please do not ask me more, because that is all that I can now tell.”
Helen was thoughtful, and just a shade reserved. That she was to be excluded from some of the secret hurt just a little.
“Now if the letter was taken from me by either Taki or one of his people, they will naturally think that I have had it right along, and that I intended keeping it,” he said soberly. The lad’s voice was gloomier than his words. “The best thing I can do is to go back to the ship and stay there, and not show myself ashore until the ‘Alaska’ sails.”
“How absurd!” Helen cried indignantly. “You have done nothing wrong. Why should you shoulder responsibility that does not belong to you? You must go to Lieutenant Takishima. I am sure that he will believe you; tell him everything, even the name of the person from whom you took the letter.”
Phil shook his head.
“There’s the trouble. He would not believe me when I said that I intended giving it up.”