"Yes, sir. The National has one and its terms are very reasonable."
Mark went to his room, and carefully gathered every scrap of paper. The useless went into the old stove which had stood all summer waiting the winter's need; the others he carefully placed in his pocket. Then he went out. At the bank he rented a box and left the papers he didn't want Saunders to see. He felt satisfied that nothing Saunders found would relieve him of suspicion. The burning of the papers would make the detective all the more certain that Mark ought to be watched. That would help Miss Atheson by keeping the detective on the wrong scent.
At noon Mark went to his room to wash before lunch. Saunders had not been very clever. There was a tell-tale smudge on the stove--a smudge made by a hand that had blackened itself by diving down into the ashes to search among the burned papers. Mark knew that Saunders had lost no time in searching his room, and he was happy to be still under suspicion.
But Mark was not so happy in contemplating the rest of the situation. He was getting deeper into a game he knew nothing about. What was the reason for the suspicion against the girl? Could she be a thief--or worse? Mark had heard of pretty criminals before, and he knew that beauty without is no guarantee of virtue within. But he had resolved to go through with the adventure, and he would not change his mind. He argued, too, that it was not entirely the beauty of Ruth Atheson that interested him. There was an indefinable "something else." Anyhow, innocent or guilty, he made up his mind to stand by her.
At lunch he met Saunders again and found him overly friendly, even anxious to talk. The detective opened the conversation.
"Going to see the Padre again?"
"I have an engagement with him this afternoon. I rather like the Padre!"
"Sure you do," said the detective. "Everybody does. The Padre's a wonder, and the last man one might expect to find in a little parish like this."
Mark wanted to learn more on that score.
"True enough," he said. "In the Anglican Church they would make such a man a bishop, or at least a dean."
"Well, they didn't do that with the Padre." The detective shook his head as if to express his regret that something of the kind had not been done. "He was the right hand man of the old Bishop of the diocese; but the new Bishop had to have new counselors. That's one way of the world that the church fellows have gotten into. Some say that it broke the Padre's heart, but he doesn't look it. Must have hurt him a little, though. Human nature is human nature--and after all he did for the Church, too."