Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/331

311 It took me several seconds to steady myself against the shock of this.

"Then you know Wendy Washburn?" I asked, as calmly as I could.

"I'm at least beginning to find him out," she replied. And still again there was an unmistakable note of bitterness in her voice.

"Find him out in what way?" I insisted.

The girl shifted in her chair.

"That he's everything that's abominable!" was her impassioned reply.

"Why do you say that?" I went on, determined to make hay while the sun shone.

"Because he's cruel and deceitful, as you'll very soon find out, if you haven't done it already."

"Then you—you know the sort of work he's been taking up?" I ventured.

"Yes, I know it—to my sorrow!"

I felt that somewhere at the far end of a long and untraversed tunnel I was at last seeing a little light.

"And Ezra and Enoch Bartlett," I continued, "are they your uncles?"

"I suppose so," she listlessly admitted.

"You suppose so?" I repeated. "Don't you know?"

"I never thought much about it."