Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/297

 No. Here was a mystery she could not solve. Perhaps Ian Barr could solve it. But she would not be allowed to ask him. If Sir Ian Hereward continued to screen himself behind his incredible cowardice, she would have to speak. Yet speaking might create some new danger for Ian which she could not foresee, while such mysteries as this of the revolver existed even for her. She remembered the inquest, and shuddered at the thought of cross-examination. If she should ruin Ian, while sacrificing his love to save him?

"I think Liane's arrest must do Mr. Barr's case good," said Terry at last. "Of course, they may think she made up this tale about Ernest Bayne to help the man she really loves—don't look like that, dear! The truth can surely be proved. But if he's got blood in his veins, Bayne will come forward now, to exonerate his friend, who so nobly kept silence to spare an innocent girl from dreadful sorrow. There ought to be a great revulsion of feeling in Mr. Barr's favour. He is a loyal friend!"

"He is indeed!" answered Nora. "More loyal than you know," she added in a whisper drowned in the roaring of the train.

So they talked on, and Terry found no chance during the journey to write her letter to Sir Ian. Excited by the news of Liane s arrest, and by the discussion of probabilities with Nora, she lost sight of the importance which, till the moment of entering the train,