"Why didn't you tell us this before?"
"At least—I am telling you now, Miss Sherrill. I frightened him, and he got away. But I had seen him plainly. I can describe him. . . . You've talked with your father of the possibility that something might 'happen' to me such as, perhaps, happened to Mr. Corvet. If anything does happen to me, a description of the man may . . . prove useful."
He saw the color leave her face, and her eyes brighten; he accepted this for agreement on her part. Then clearly and definitely as he could, he described Spearman to her. She did not recognize the description; he had known she would not. Had not Spearman been in Duluth? Beyond that, was not connection of Spearman with the prowler in Corvet's house the one connection of all most difficult for her to make? But he saw her fixing and recording the description in her mind.
They were silent as they went on toward her home. He had said all he could, or dared to say; to tell her that the man had been Spearman would not merely have awakened her incredulity; it would have destroyed credence utterly. A definite change in their relation to one another had taken place during their walk. The fullness, the frankness of the sympathy there had been between them almost from their first meeting, had gone; she was quite aware, he saw, that he had not frankly answered her questions; she was aware that in some way he had drawn back from her and shut her out from his thoughts about his own position here. But he had known that this must be so; it had been his first definite realization after his return to consciousness in the hospital when, knowing now her relation to Spearman, he
