Squire Hexter, armed with authority and information given him by the young man, had repeatedly waited on Tasper Britt and had asked what attitude the president proposed to take at the trial.  Britt had said that he should tell the truth, and that was all any witness could be expected to do or to promise, furthermore, so he told the Squire, he had been enjoined by his counsel to make no talk to anybody.

Vaniman was not sure of his self-restraint during that period of waiting.  There were days when he felt like slapping the faces that glowered when he looked at them.  He avoided any meeting with Britt.  That was easy, because Britt swung with pendulum regularity between house and tavern, tavern and office.

There were days when Vaniman was so thoroughly disheartened that he pleaded with Vona to make a show of breaking off their friendship.  She had insisted on displaying herself as his champion; obeying her, he walked in her company to and from the bank with more or less regularity.  His spirit of chivalry made the snubs harder to endure when she was obliged to share them in his company.

But Vona staunchly refused to be a party to such deception.  She borrowed some figures of speech suggested by the work she was doing in the bank and declared that her loyalty was not insolvent and that she would not make any composition with her conscience.

In her zeal to be of service, one day she even volunteered to interview Tasper Britt on the subject of what had happened to the Egypt Trust Company.  On that fresh April morning they had walked up the slope of Burkett Hill, where the sward was showing its first green.  He had come to her house earlier than usual so that she might have time for the little excursion.  They hunted for mayflowers and found enough to make a bit of a bouquet for her desk in the office.

“One just has to feel hopeful in the spring, Frank,” she insisted, brushing the blossoms gently against his cheek.  From the slope they could look down into the length of Egypt’s main street.  “Why, there goes Tasper Britt toward his office and he actually waved his hand to a man—­honest!  The spring does soften folks.  If he does know something about the inside of the dreadful puzzle, as you and I have talked so many times, I do believe I can coax him to tell me.”

“I don’t want you to coax him, dear.  Squire Hexter has put the thing up to Britt, man to man, and I think it better to let it stand that way.”

“But if we could get only a little hint to work from!”

“I’m afraid you’ll find him as stingy with hints as he is with everything else.  He does know—­something!  I would not put him above arranging that frame-up that put me where I was found that night,” he declared, with bitterness.

“No, Frank, I tell you again that I don’t believe he knew it was going to happen.  When I stood there outside the curtain that night I was looking straight at him, and at nobody else.  I don’t remember another face.  Tasper Britt is not actor enough to make up the expression that I saw.  It was simple, absolute, flabbergasted fright!”