Chagrined beyond expression, he made ready to follow Anderson with all haste in his own machine. Rosalie hurriedly perfected preparations to accompany him. She was rejoining the house party that day, was consumed by excitement over the situation, and just as eager as Bonner to checkmate the untimely operations of poor old Anderson Crow.
The marshal had more than half an hour's start of them. Bonner was his own chauffeur and he was a reckless one to-day. Luck was against him at the outset. The vigorous old detective inspired to real speed, for the first time in his lackadaisacal life, left the newspaper men at the bridge nearly three-quarters of an hour before Bonner passed the same spot, driving furiously up the hill toward Judge Brewster's.
"If your bothersome old daddy gets his eyes on Barnes before I can head him off, dearest, the jig will be up," groaned Bonner, the first words he had spoken in miles. "Barnes will be on his guard and ready for anything. The old--pardon me, for saying it--the old jay ought to know the value of discretion in a case like this."
"Poor old daddy," she sighed, compassion in her heart. "He thinks he is doing it for the best. Wicker, I hope it is--it is not Mr. Barnes," she added, voicing a thought which had been struggling in her mind for a long time.
"It would mean one of two things. Either he does not want to recognise me as his child--or cannot, which is even worse. Wicker, I don't want to know the truth. I am afraid--I am afraid."
She was trembling like a leaf and there was positive distress in her eyes, eyes half covered by lids tense with alarm.
"Don't feel that way about it, dear," cried he, recovering from his astonishment and instantly grasping the situation as it must have appeared to her. "To tell you the truth, I do not believe that Mr. Barnes is related to you in any way. If he is connected with the case at all, it is in the capacity of attorney."
"But he is supposed to be an honourable man."
"True, and I still believe him to be. It does not seem possible that he can be engaged in such work as this. We are going altogether on supposition--putting two and two together, don't you know, and hoping they will stick. But, in any event, we must not let any chance slip by. If he is interested, we must bring him to time. It may mean the unravelling of the whole skein, dear. Don't look so distressed. Be brave. It doesn't matter what we learn in the end, I love you just the same. You shall be my wife."