Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/220

208 "Expected! What do you mean?" the girl asked.

Chester jerked his head in the direction of the patient.

"You heard what he said."

"But, Chester," the girl expostulated, "he is delirious. You don't mean that you suspect—"

"I hate to say it, my dear girl, especially when he's down and out, but it looks to me as though he'd let the cat out of the bag unconsciously."

"But think, Chester! You know him well enough to be sure he couldn't do a thing like that—"

"I know it isn't the sort of thing I should have expected of him," the planter said a trifle more bitterly, "but I know I didn't remove the pearls, and you didn't. There were three human beings on the face of the earth who knew where the cache was, and Keith was the third. Even supposing a nigger had known the pearls were in that room, the hole in the beam was covered so carefully that he might have hunted all day there without getting them. I didn't like to suspect Keith before, but now I have heard it from his own lips there's no alternative."

"I am sure—perfectly convinced—you are wrong," Joan declared obstinately. "At least you must remember that he was delirious when he said