The morning newspapers carried the story of Quentin's adventure to the Garrison home, and Dorothy's face, almost haggard as the result of a sleepless night, grew whiter still, and her tired eyes filled with dread. She did not have to recall their conversation of the night before, for it had not left her mind, but her thoughts went back to a former conversation in which he had ridiculed the bandits. The newspaper fell from her nerveless fingers, and she left the table, her breakfast untouched, stealing miserably to her room, to escape her mother's inquisitive eyes.
Her wretched state was not improved by the visit of a veiled young woman later in the day. The visitor was undoubtedly a lady, but the story she poured into the unwilling ears was so astounding that Dorothy dismissed her indignantly before it was finished. The low-voiced, intense stranger, young and evidently beautiful, told her that Quentin's injuries were not inflicted by thieves, but by the hired agents of one who had cause to fear him. Before Miss Garrison could remonstrate, the stranger went into the details of a plot so cowardly that she was horrified--horrified all the more because, in a large measure, it sustained the charges made against her lover by Philip Quentin. When at last she could no longer endure the villifying recital she bade the woman to leave the house, hotly refusing to give countenance to the lies she was telling. The stranger desisted only after her abject pleading had drawn from the other a bitter threat to have her ejected by the servants.
"You will not hear me to the end, but you must give me the privilege of saying that I do not come here to do him or you an injury," said the visitor, tremulously. "It is to save you from him and to save him for myself. Mademoiselle, I love him. He would marry me were it not for you. You think jealousy, then, inspired this visit? I admit that jealousy is the foundation, but it does not follow that I am compelled to lie. Everything I have said and would say is true. Perhaps he loves you, but he loved me first. A week ago he told me that he loved me still. It was I who warned the American gentleman against him, and my reason is plain. I want him to win. It would mean death to me if it were known that I came to you with this story. Do you bid me go, or will you hear me to the end?"