There was a silence, during which we could almost hear her quick breath come and go.

“Women—­not even Peruvian women are like the women of the past, Chester,” she said at length.  “We are not playthings.  Perhaps we have hearts—­but we also have heads.  We are not to be taken up and put down as you please.  We may love—­but we also think.  Chester, I have been to see Professor Kennedy, and—­”

She stopped.  It hurt too much to repeat what she had seen.

“Inez,” he implored.

There was evidently a great struggle of love and suspicion going on in her, her love of him, her memory of her father, the recollection of what she had heard and seen.  No one could have been as we were without wishing to help her.  Yet no one could help her.  She must work out her own life herself.

“Yes,” she said finally, the struggle ended.  “What is it?”

“Do you want me to tell you the truth?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

His voice was low and tense.

“I was there—­yes—­but the dagger was gone!”

XVII

THE VOICE FROM THE AIR

“Do you believe it?” I asked Kennedy, as the voices died away, leaving us with a feeling that some one had gone out of the very room in which we were.

He shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.  But I cannot say that he seemed ill pleased at the result of the interview.

“We’ll just keep this vocaphone in,” he remarked.  “It may come in handy some time.  Now, I think we had better go back to the laboratory!  Things have begun to move.”

On the way back he stopped to telephone Norton to meet us and a few minutes after we arrived, the archaeologist entered.

Kennedy lost no time in coming directly to the point, and Norton could see, in fact seemed to expect and be prepared for what was coming.

“Well,” exclaimed Kennedy, “you’ve done it, this time!”

“I know what you are going to ask,” returned Norton.  “You are going to ask me why I did it.  And I’m going to tell you.  After I left you, the other day, I thought about it a long time.  The more I thought, the more of a shame it seemed to me that a girl like that should be made a victim of her feelings.  It wasn’t so much what they have done to me that made me do it.  I would have acted the same if it had been de Moche instead of Lockwood who was playing on her heart.  I was afraid, to tell the truth, that you wouldn’t tell her until it was too late.  And she’s too good to throw herself away and allow her fortune to be wasted by a couple of speculators.”

“Very well,” said Craig.  “For the sake of argument, let us admit all that.  What did you expect to accomplish by it?”

“Why—­put an end to it, of course.”

“But do you think she was going to accept as truth what you told her?  Would that be natural for one so high-strung?”