“My only wonder is that you retained any confidence.”

“Oh, but I did,” she insisted warmly.  “That alone brought me here.  I thought of appealing to a lawyer, to the police, and then your face rose up before me, and my decision was made.  I came back to you that night because—­because I believed you to be a gentleman.”

“And now? henceforth?”

Her eyes never wavered, although there was a high color in her cheeks as my hands clasped her own more closely.

“I am convinced I chose aright.  You are the man I thought you to be.  I am glad I came.”

For an instant the hot blood coursed through my veins; I seemed to see only the beauty of her flesh.  Wild words leaped to my lips, only to be choked back unspoken, although I scarcely knew what strength combined to win the swift struggle.  Impulse, made with sudden revelation of love, swept me perilously near to outburst, yet reason held sufficiently firm to restrain; the flood of passion.  I knew I must refrain; I read it in the calm depths of those eyes fronting me in frank friendship.  A word, a single, mad, ill-considered word, would sever the bond between us as though cleft by a sword.  With any other I might have dared all, but not with her.  Reckless as my nature had grown in the hard school of life, I shrank from this test, dreading to see her face change, her attitude harden.  And it would; there had already been sufficient revealment of her character to make me aware of how firm a line she drew between right and wrong.  It was not in her nature to compromise.  She trusted, me—­yes!  But as a “gentleman.”  Should I fail in that test of her faith I could never again hope to regain my place in her esteem.  I have wondered since how I ever won that swift, deadly battle; how I ever crushed back the wild passion, the mad impulse to clasp her In my arms.  Yet, under God’s mercy I did, my voice emotionless, my face white from restraint, my lips dry as with fever.  The one thing I was sure about just then was that we must break away from this personal conversation; flesh and blood could stand the strain no longer.

“Let’s not talk of ourselves then,” I said, releasing her hands, “but of what we must face here.  We trust each other; that is enough for the present surely.  You will not leave, and let me ferret out the mystery alone, so we must work together in its solution.  I have told you that Coombs claims to be working under the orders of your husband.  Is that possible?”

“I cannot conceive clearly how it could be, and yet he might have received notice of his father’s death in time to assume control of the estate by telegraph, or even by letter.”

“I hardly think Coombs has been here so short a time.”

“He might have been the old overseer, however, and retained.”

“True; yet how could Philip Henley know that he had inherited the property?”

She thought a moment seriously, a little crease in the center of her forehead.