She came down stairs for a book, having at last finished the one in her room, resigned to inactivity for another day, perhaps for two or three days, until her uncle’s watch upon her movements was less keen and suspicious.  She reflected that if she read something she might coax her thoughts away from considerations which he could not understand in their entirety, and which terrified her when she thought that she did understand.

In her quest she passed down the hall and to Pollard’s office at the front of the house.  The room was by no means private; she had gone into it many times before; sometimes it was used as a sitting room.  She had thought that her uncle was in it, but when she came to the open door she saw that it was empty.

She went to the long table at which Pollard wrote his few letters.  Upon one end of it, at the far end from the pen and ink, were some books and old magazines, piled carelessly.  Yesterday she had seen here a fairly recent novel the title of which promised her an interesting story.  A glance showed her the book, lying open, where Pollard had evidently been reading it.  And in the same careless glance she saw something else which sent the blood into her face and made her turn swiftly, apprehensively, toward the door.

There, beside Pollard’s chair, was his waste paper basket, filled to overflowing with crumpled papers.  And, thrusting upward through the papers, catching her eye because the papers were white and it was another colour, was a long, yellow envelope.  An envelope exactly like the one in which Mr. Templeton had put the bank notes she was to carry to her uncle!

Obeying her swift impulse she stepped to the basket and drew the envelope out.  It was not only like the one she knew, yellow and cloth lined, but it was the same one!  She knew that beyond a hint of doubt.  For she remembered how, while sealing the thing for her, Mr. Templeton had laid it down on his table, upon his ink-wet pen, how he had carelessly blotted it.  And here was the blot!

She came swiftly around the table.  Her back was toward the open door.  And....

Henry Pollard was standing behind her, watching her!  She did not see him, she could not be sure that she had heard his soft step on the hall carpet, but she knew that he was there.  She seemed to sense his presence with the subtle sixth sense.

CHAPTER XXIII

WARNING

She felt her heart beating wildly ... if at that second he had spoken to her she could not have found immediate voice in answer were it to save her life.  But further, she knew that if he gave her one second longer she could control herself.  For the first time it came upon her in a flash that she had a personal interest in what these men did.  They sought to play her for their dupe, their fool; they counted upon making her a sort of innocent accomplice, they dared to count upon her to help them.  To make their own positions safe they were dragging her into the dirty mess that they had made.