“You will forgive me if I ask what you did come for, Joan.  I would rather you had come as a friend, but I fear there is no chance of that.”

She laughed mockingly.

“I have searched for you many days,” she said, “and many nights.  I have ransacked a city which was strange to me; I have walked many hundreds of miles over its pavements until I have grown sick with disappointments.  And now that I have found you Douglas Guest, you are right when you say that I do not come as your friend.”

“You had a motive, I presume?”

“Yes, I had a motive.  I wanted to look into your face and tell you that the net of my vengeance is drawn close about you, and the cords are gathered in my hands.  To-day you are flushed with triumph, to-morrow you will be pale with fear.”

“Joan,” he said, looking across the table into her face, distorted with passion, “you believe that I killed your father?”

“Believe?  I know it!”

“Nevertheless I did not raise my hand against him.  I took money because it was my own.  I left him sound and well.”

“There are others,” she exclaimed scornfully, “who may believe that, but not many, I should think.”

“Joan,” he said earnestly, “you will be a happier woman all your life if you will listen to me now.  Your father was killed that night and robbed, but not by me.  I took twenty pounds, which was not a tithe of what belonged to me—­not a penny more.  It was after I had left—­”

“Two in one night?” she interrupted.  “It doesn’t sound ingenious, Douglas Guest, though you are welcome, of course, to your own story.”

“Ingenious or not, it is true,” he answered.  “You are very bitter against me, and some hard thoughts from you I have certainly deserved.  But of what you think I am not guilty, and unless you want to do a thing of which you will repent until your dying day, you must put that thought away from you.”

“Do you think that I am a child?” she asked scornfully.  “Do you think that I am to be put off with such rubbish as that?  I made all my arrangements long ago for when I found you.  In less than an hour you will be in prison.”

“Joan, you are very hard,” he said.

“I loved my father, and I hate you,” she returned, passionately.

He nodded.

“I misjudged you,” he said reflectively.  “I never gave you credit for such tenacity of purpose.  I did not think that love or hate would ever burn their way into your life.”

“Then you were a fool,” she answered shortly.  “You have never understood me.  Perhaps when you have the rope about your neck you will read a woman’s nature more truthfully.”

“You are very vindictive, Joan.”

“I want justice,” she replied sharply, “and I hate you!”

“Listen,” he said.  “I am not going to make any attempt to escape.  I will answer this charge of yours when the time comes.  Meanwhile there is something which I want to show you.  It will not take long and it may alter your purpose.”