“Quite so,” assented Gavin, his voice as jarring as a file’s.  “I did.  And he decided that I shouldn’t change my mind.  He—­”

“It wasn’t till half an hour ago,” she hurried on. miserably. “that I knew.  I was coming down stairs.  Milo and Rodney Hade were in the music-room together.  I didn’t mean to overhear.  But oh, I’m so glad I did!”

“I’m glad it could make you so happy,” he said.  “The pleasure is all yours.”

“All I caught was just this:”  she went on.  “Rodney was saying:  ’Nonsense!  Roke will have let him out before now.  And there are worse places to spend a hot afternoon in than locked snugly in a cool storeroom.’”

“Are there?” interpolated Brice.  “I’d hate to test that.”

“All in a flash.  I understood,” she continued, her sweet voice struggling gallantly against tears.  “I knew Rodney didn’t want us to have any guests or to have any outsiders at all at our house.  He was fearfully displeased with us last night for having you there.  It was all we could do to persuade him that the man who had saved Milo’s life couldn’t be turned out of doors or left to look elsewhere for work.  It was only when Milo promised to give you work at the key that he stopped arguing and being so imperative about it.  And when I heard him speak just now about your being locked in a store room there.  I knew he had done it to prevent your coming back here for a while.”

“Your reasoning was most unfeminine in its correctness,” approved Gavin, still forcing himself to resist the piteous pleading in her voice.

He could see her flinch under the harshness of his tone as she added: 

“And all at once I realized what it must mean to you and what you must think of us—­after all you’d done for Milo.  And I knew how a beast like Roke would be likely to treat you when he knew my brother and Rodney had left you there at the mercy of his companionship.  There was no use talking to them.  It might be hours before I could convince them and make them go or send for you.  And I couldn’t bear to have you kept there all that time.  So I slipped out of the house and ran to the landing.  Just as I got out into the bay.  I saw you coming through that strait back there.  I recognized the fruit launch.  And I knew it must be you.  For nobody from the key would have run at such speed toward that clump of reefs.  You capsized. before I could get to you, and—­”

She shuddered, and ceased to speak.  For another moment or two there was silence between them.  Gavin Brice’s mind was busy with all she said.  He was dissecting and analyzing her every anxious word.  He was bringing to bear on the matter not only his trained powers of logic but his knowledge of human nature.

And all at once he knew this trembling girl was in no way guilty of the crime attempted against him.  He knew, too, from the speech of Hade’s which she had just repeated. that Standish presumably had had no part in the attempted murder, but that that detail had been devised by Hade for Roke to put into execution.  Nor. evidently had Davy been let into the secret by Roke.