"And why did I do it?" she asked quietly.
"Sho! I know why you did it. Jim Budd told you what he had heard, and you
figured you could save your father from doing it. You meant to give the
money back, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I can't prove that either in court or to Mr. Bellamy."
"You don't need to prove it to me. If you say so, that's enough," he said
in his unenthusiastic voice.
"But you're not judge and jury, and you're certainly not Mr. Bellamy."
"Scrape Arizona with a fine-tooth comb and you couldn't get a jury to
convict when it's up against the facts in this case."
At this she brightened. "Thank you, Mr. Flatray." And naïvely she added
with a little laugh: "Are you ready to put the handcuffs on me yet?"
He looked with a smile at her outstretched hands. "They wouldn't stay
on."
"Don't you carry them in sizes to fit all criminals?"
"I'll have to put you on parole."
"I'll break it and climb out the window. Then I'll run off with this."
She indicated the box of treasure.
"I need that wash-stand in my room. I'm going to take it up there
to-night," he said.
"This isn't a very good safety deposit vault," she answered, and,
nodding a careless good-night, she walked away in her slow-limbed,
graceful Southern fashion.
She had carried it off to the last without breaking down, but, once in her
own room, the girl's face showed haggard in the moonlight. It was one
thing to jest about it with him; it was another to face the facts as they
stood. She was in the power of her father's enemy, the man whose proffer
of friendship they had rejected with scorn. Her pride cried out that she
could not endure mercy from him even if he wished to extend it. Surely
there must be some other way out than the humiliation of begging him not
to prosecute. She could see none but one, and that was infinitely worse.
Yet she knew it would be her father's first impulsive instinct to seek to
fight her out of her trouble, the more because it was through him that it
had fallen upon her. At all hazards she must prevent this.