Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/91

Rh "Yes, my wife, and mine," the man hissed defiantly, "eight years ago back in St. Louis till, till this cursed Bronson broke up the gang and sent me over the road for three years, and she got to thinking he must be stuck on her and might marry her, because he helped her, until—until she found out!"

"Ah; I thought she had been your wife when I saw you, after the boy; but, of course—" Trant checked himself as he heard a knock on the door.

"Miss Allison is in her carriage outside sir," the officer who had knocked saluted Inspector Walker. "She has come to see you, sir. She says you sent no word." Walker looked from the cringing Caylis to Trant.

"We do not need Caylis any longer, inspector," said Trant. "I can tell Miss Allison all the facts now, if you wish to have her hear them."

The door, which shut behind Crowley and his prisoner, reopened almost immediately to admit the inspector, and Miss Allison. With her fair, sweet face flushed with the hope which had taken the place of the white fear and defiance of the morning, Trant barely knew her.

"The inspector tells me, Mr. Trant," she stretched out both her hands to him, "that you have good news for me—that Kanlan was not guilty—and so Randolph was not going out as—as they said he was when they killed him."

"No; he was not!" Trant returned, triumphantly. "He was going instead on an errand of mercy, Miss Allison, to summon a doctor for a little child whom he had been told was suddenly and dangerously ill.