you he did not! You think he did. You do—you do! I can see it in your eyes!”
“Believe me, Mrs. Camber,” I answered, deeply moved, “I don’t doubt your word for a moment.”
She continued to look at me for a while, and then turned to Val Beverley.
“You don’t think he did,” she sobbed, “do you?”
She looked such a child, such a pretty, helpless child, as she knelt there on the carpet, that I felt a lump rising in my throat.
Val Beverley dropped down impulsively beside her and put her arms around the slender shoulders.
“Of course I don’t,” she exclaimed, indignantly. “Of course I don’t. It’s quite unthinkable.”
“I know it is,” moaned the other, raising her tearful face. “I love him and know his great soul. But what do these others know, and they will never believe me.”
“Have courage,” I said. “It has never failed you yet. Mr. Paul Harley has promised to clear him by to-night.”
“He has promised?” she whispered, still kneeling and clutching Val Beverley tightly. She looked up at me with hope reborn in her beautiful eyes. “He has promised? Oh, I thank him. May God bless him. I know he will succeed.”
I turned aside, and walked out across the hall and into the empty study.
