"I--I can't go back to camp yet, for all it's raining."
"Well," said Philip comfortably, "rain be hanged. We'll wait a bit."
Diane gave a sigh of relief and lay very quiet.
Philip wisely said nothing. He shifted the lantern so his own face might be in the shadow and for some reason of his own, fell to speaking of Carl. He told of Mic-co, of the quiet hours of healing by the pool, of another night of storm and stress when Carl had gone forth into the wilds with the Indian girl.
For the first time now he felt that he had pierced the girl's shell of tragic introspection and caught her interest. Though the rain came faster and the lantern flickered, Philip went on with his quiet story.
He spoke of the forces that had fired Carl to drunken resentment, the defection of his comrades, his conviction of injustice in the apportionment of the Westfall estate, the climax of his sensitive rebellion against Diane's attitude toward his mother, the morose and morbid loneliness which had driven him relentlessly to ruin.
"What did he hope to gain by writing to Houdania?" asked the girl a little bitterly.
"Money!" said Philip firmly. "He fancied he could frighten them and put a heavy price upon his silence. Later when his letter to Houdania was ignored he altered his plans. If he could prove that you were the daughter of Theodomir and not of Norman Westfall--then the great estate of his uncle would revert to him. Before he could act further, things began to happen. And then," added Philip thoughtfully, "comes another dark patch in the mystery. Carl's story must have crossed wires with something else--something that frightened them and made his death imperative. The hysterical desperation of these men was out of all proportion to the cause. Baron Tregar, baffling as he is at times, is not the man to lend himself to deliberate assassination merely to keep the succession of Ronador's son free from incumbrances. Later still, Carl planned to sell the secret to the rival province of Galituria, but the net closed in so rapidly and he fell to drinking so heavily, that brain and body revolted and the first shadow of insanity whispered another way--"
"To murder me!" flashed the girl. For the first time there was warmth and color in her face.