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“You care for him as much as that, then,” Hutchins said, his voice sinking to a whisper.

“Yes,” said Pearl Jane, and her face glowed with a soft flush.

Then realizing that she had been trapped, she flew at him like a young tigress. “How dare you? You think that is fair—right—to trap me into an admission. Mr. Hutchins, you are more guilty of falsehood than I! You have no right to”

“There, there, Miss Cutler, yours is an open secret. You couldn’t keep it if you wanted to. Now, let me tell you, that it will be better for Mr. Locke in the long run, if you will be frank about him. Are you engaged to him?”

“No.”

“Do you—or did you expect to be?”

“Those are questions you’ve no right to ask.”

“Very well, perhaps I haven’t. Now, Miss Cutler, do you know whose this is?”

He flung off the paper, and held up the wig suddenly before her astonished eyes.

She gazed at it as if hypnotized. She wasn’t scared—she seemed not to be over-curious, but she looked at the thing with a mild wonder, as a child at a curious novelty.

“Where did it come from?” she asked, and gave a puzzled smile.

“Of whom does it remind you?”

“Of Mr. Locke. It is exactly like his hair.”

“Do you think it is his hair? I mean, do you think he wears a wig, continually?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. I don’t know, I’m sure, but I do know that’s Tommy Locke’s hair, or just exactly like the hair I’ve always seen on his head. Oh, nonsense!