Nora Cavanaugh held out her hand with that frankness which is always so fascinating in a beautiful woman.
"I am very glad to see you," she said. "And I recall very well what I heard of you. It was that queer affair of the Campes, and the strange dangers which haunted the hills about their country place." Her eyes were fixed steadily upon Ashton-Kirk as she spoke; the smile of welcome was still in them; but behind this there was something else--a something which evidently interested Ashton-Kirk intensely.
"I've been telling Kirk of the thing at Stanwick," spoke Scanlon, as they all three sat down at a west window, through which the lowering sun was throwing its crimsoning touch. "He's a little interested and thought he'd like to hear what you had to say."
The smile went completely out of Nora's eyes; the sombre thing at the back of them came at once to the surface; and Ashton-Kirk saw her hand, as she lifted it to her face, tremble.
"The police are fools!" she declared. "Frank Burton is innocent. It is shameful to attribute any crime to him--but to accuse him of the murder of his father"--here a shudder ran through her--"it's horrible!"
"He'll have to carefully explain a number of things, though, before the authorities change their minds," said Scanlon. "Not only have they certain definite facts on him; but they have the notion that he's not told them everything."
"Maybe so!" Bat shrugged his shoulders. "But I had a chance to look him over to-day, and while I liked his appearance, I agree with the cops that he was holding back on them."
"It may be that he is," she said, and there was a break in the rare voice. "But why fix upon this so readily as a sign of guilt? Consider the circumstances. He is the son of a man whose life was a continuous shame; there very likely was not a day that did not bring some fresh knowledge of wrong-doing to the boy--some mean thing beneath contempt, which made him shrink and quiver. And now there comes another thing--a last and horrible one! It may be," and the beautiful arms lifted in a gesture of despair, "that in this there was additional shame. Can you wonder, then, that he hesitated?"
Bat Scanlon did not reply, contenting himself with merely nodding his head. This side of the thing had not occurred to him; but now that she had pointed it out, it seemed quite reasonable. Ashton-Kirk fixed his singular dark eyes upon the beautiful woman who stood so appealingly before them.