Page:The haunted bookshop.djvu/289



"Mr. Mifflin has told me some more about what you did last week—I mean, how you took a room across the street and spied upon that hateful man and saw through the whole thing when we were too blind to know what was going on. And I want to apologize for the silly things I said that Sunday morning. Will you forgive me?"

Aubrey had never felt his self-salesmanship ability at such a low ebb. To his unspeakable horror, he felt his eyes betray him. They grew moist.

"Please don't talk like that," he said. "I had no right to do what I did, anyway. And I was wrong in what I said about Mr. Mifflin. I don't wonder you were angry."

"Now surely you're not going to deprive me of the pleasure of thanking you," she said. "You know as well as I do that you saved my life—all our lives, that night. I guess you'd have saved poor Bock's, too, if you could." Her eyes filled with tears.

"If anybody deserves credit, it's you," he said. "Why, if it hadn't been for you they'd have been away with that suitcase and probably Metzger would have got his bomb on board the ship and blown up the President——"

"I'm not arguing with you," she said. "I'm just thanking you."