father. I had heard the
story in all its pitiful details. As a child he had been affronted and
mishandled--as a boy--as a young man. He could never forget what his
mother had been forced to endure; in his mind was always the fact that
his sister was an invalid, perhaps for life, owing to the poverty
brought on them by their father's neglect. With all this before me, can
you wonder that I was afraid--afraid that the boy, in a moment of
madness, had struck his father down?"

Bat drew in a long breath; in it there was a vast relief and a certain
wonder.

"No," said he. "No; did you think that?"

"The idea was agonizing, and I made up my mind to do all I could to save
him; that is why I appealed to you to get me all the intimate details.
Then he was arrested; the body had been examined by the coroner, but no
word was said of my jewels. It was then that a second thought came to
me; suppose the murder had not been done, after all, in a sudden
mounting of fury? Suppose the boy had seen the diamonds and had been
tempted? Suppose he had killed Tom Burton in order to get possession of
them? I was appalled at the notion, which with each moment became more
and more a conviction. But I still held to the resolve to help him. What
if he had done the thing? Was it altogether his fault? Was it not a part
of an inheritance from a tainted father?

"So I said nothing of my loss of the jewels; the dread was in me that if
the facts concerning them were known, suspicion would fall upon
him--they might discover the stolen things on him and so he would lose
his life, as well as his life's happiness, because of that man. I felt
that no part of the truth must come out, that I must not even tell of my
husband's visit to me that night; and when, in talking with you at your
office, I permitted the fact to slip, I was startled."

"I remember that you were," said Bat. "And I wondered what it meant." He
sat for a space and looked at her; and then, as she said nothing more,
he went on: "You do not know it, but for days things fell in such
combinations that more than once it looked as though _you_ would be
accused."

"Bat!" She cried out his name, frightened, and her wide brown eyes
opened to their fullest extent.

"Even an hour ago I saw and heard some things which seemed to point to
you. Maybe if my nerves weren't keyed up as they are I wouldn't have
thought so. But, anyway, I did, and that's what brought me here."

"But surely," and her voi