Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/375

 he loved, who would never need him more than at this moment.

"Hen-ree!" Lahleet burst out, unable to contain herself longer, and flung the door wide; but, instead of rushing in, stepped back and waited in the corridor. "You are free!" she cried wildly. "You are free! They are coming to let you out. You didn't kill the man. Everybody knows you didn't do it now."

Harrington had started up, staring dumbly.

"They've got the man that did!" Lahleet concluded, then stamped her foot, impatient for him to understand.

Henry was the more bewildered. "But you—then you" he stammered. The truth crashed into his mind. Neither had Lahleet killed the unknown in the ferns! A vast sickening sense of oppression lifted from him; and in the same instant he saw that she had never known that he thought she had—and that she must never be permitted to know it.

But her naive impatience could not endure that trifling interval of time which it took Harrington to do this much of thinking. She went bounding through the door and into his arms. "Henry!" she sobbed. "Henry!" and was crying on his breast.

He clasped her tight—a dear little burden—and then, tenderly, like a father, lowered her to the floor beside him and raised questioning eyes to White.

"Search me!" proclaimed the jailor with honest bewilderment. "I don't know a thing. She carried me off my feet. It must be all right though. She's about the last one to kid herself, that piece!"

"Of course, it's all right, you big goose!" Lahleet