Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/397

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there was a smoldering something in her eyes which he had never noticed there before.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" she demanded impishly, pulling herself free of his grateful handclasp.

But Henry's effervescent happiness was not to be choked up now by any temperamental outburst of his most loyal and serviceable friend. "To tell Billie that I didn't do it—that everybody knows now I didn't do it!" he overflowed, concealing none of his joy in the prospect.

"Huh!" shrugged Lahleet, and wrinkled her short nose. "That won't be any news to her!"

"It won't?" inquired Henry, startled by some pregnancy in the girl's tone. "What do you mean?"

"She knew you didn't do it all the time," Lahleet assured, then smiled as if at his naive simplicity.

"She—she knew?" stammered Harrington, astounded, indignant. Seizing her wrists fiercely, he demanded: "How do you know what she thought?"

Lahleet, accepting the captivity of his hands, gazed up demurely, hers the expression of a woman innocent of anything yet capable of everything—if Henry had had the keenness to interpret it. "I went to see her," the girl confessed without a blush, "that first night you were in jail—to—to tell her they were driving you insane; to plead with her to go your bail, to come to you, write to you, telephone to you, send you a flower even, do anything to—to——"

"You—you did that?" murmured the shaken Harrington, surprised—incredulous—grateful, all in one. Then, forgetting everything but that this was his first opportunity to learn something of the state