“Can you bear to tell me what misfortune took you to that place?” he asked gently, yet fighting down all the time that desire to roar with rage.

“Why do you not say ‘crime,’ Captain Latham?” she asked in that same low, strained voice.

“Because I know that crime and you could not be associated, Miss Macklin,” he said hoarsely.

At that she began suddenly to weep.  Not aloud, but with her hands pressed over her eyes and her shoulders, shaking with long, shuddering sobs which betrayed how the horror of past thoughts and experiences controlled her when once she gave way.  Tunis Latham could have behaved like a madman.  That berserk rage that had seized him in the restaurant welled up in his heart now.  He gripped the back of the bench till the slat cracked.  But there was no opponent here upon whom he could vent his violence that he longed to express.

“Don’t cry!  For God’s sake, don’t cry!” he whispered hoarsely.  “I know it was all a mistake.  It must have been a mistake.  How could anybody have been so wicked, so utterly senseless, as to believe you guilty of—­of—­what did they accuse you of?”

“Stealing,” whispered the girl.

“‘Stealing?’ What nonsense!”

He put a wealth of disdain into the words.  She sat up straighter.  She dropped her hands from her face and looked at him.  Dark as it was on the bench, he could see that her expression was one of wonder.

“Do—­do you really feel that way about it, Captain Latham?”

“It is ridiculous!” he acclaimed heartily.

She sighed.  Her momentary animation fell and she spoke again: 

“It did not seem ridiculous to the police or to the magistrate.  I worked in a store.  A piece of sterling silverware disappeared.  Other pieces had previously been stolen.  The police traced the last missing piece to a pawnshop.  The pawnbroker testified that a girl pawned it.  His identification of me was close enough to satisfy the judge.”

“My God!”

“I was what they call a first offender.  At least, I had no police record.  Ordinarily I might have been let go under suspended sentence or been put on probation.  But I had nobody to say a good word for me.  I had been in Boston only a year, and I could not let people where I came from know about my trouble.  Even if the judge had given me a jail sentence, I could have shortened it by good behavior.  He did what he thought was best, I suppose.  He considered me a hardened young criminal.  He sent me to the St. Andrew’s School until I was twenty-one—­two years.  Two long, long years.

“Six months ago I got out and Sellers gave me a job.  Now, that is all, Captain Latham.  You will readily see my position.  I do not want to go anywhere with you to eat where your friends are likely to see you.”

He uttered a sudden, stinging, harsh sound; then he removed his cap and bent toward her.

“But what you have said—­Why, were they all crazy?  Couldn’t they see that such a thing would be impossible for you?  Impossible!”