She flung the papers down.

“I don’t believe it!” she defied.  “There is some mistake.  No—­it cannot be true!”

It was a noble exhibition of faith.  I think I have never seen any instant more tense than that in Kennedy’s laboratory.  There stood the beautiful girl declaring her faith in her lover, rejecting even the implication that it might have been he who had taken the dagger, perhaps murdered her father to insure the possession of her father’s share of the treasure as well as the possession of herself.

Kennedy did not try to combat it.  Instead he treated her very intuitions with respect.  In him there was room for both fact and feeling.

“Senorita,” he said finally, in a voice that was deep and thrilling with feeling, “have I ever been other than a friend to you?  Have I ever given you cause to suspect even one little motive of mine?”

She faced him, and they looked into each other’s eyes an instant.  But it was long enough for the man to understand the woman and she to understand him.

“No,” she murmured, glancing down again.

“Then trust me just this once.  Do as I ask you.”

For an instant she struggled with herself.  What would he ask?

“What is it?” she questioned, raising her eyes to him again.

“Have you seen Mr. Lockwood?”

“No.”

“Then, I want you to see him.  Surely you wish to have no secrets from him any more than you would wish him to have anything secret from you.  See him.  Ask him frankly about it all.  It is the only fair thing to him—­it is only fair to yourself.”

Senorita Mendoza was no coward.  “I—­I will,” she almost whispered.

“Splendid!” exclaimed Kennedy in admiration.  “I knew that you would.  You are not the woman who could do otherwise.  May I see that you get home safely?  Walter, call a taxicab.”

Senorita Mendoza was calmer, though pale and still nervous, when I returned.  Kennedy handed her into the car and then returned to the laboratory for two rather large packages, which he handed to me.

“You must come along with us, Walter,” he said.  “We shall need you.”

Scarcely a word was spoken as we jolted over the city pavements and at last reached the apartment.  Inez and Craig entered and I followed, carrying just one of the packages as Craig had indicated by dumb show, leaving the other in the car, which was to wait.

“I think you had better write him a note,” suggested Craig, as we entered the living room.  “I don’t want you to see him until you feel better—­and, by the way, see him here.”

She nodded with a wan smile, as though thinking how unusual it was for a meeting of lovers to be an ordeal, then excused herself to write the note.

She had no sooner disappeared than Kennedy unwrapped the package which I had brought.  From it he took a cedar box, oblong, with a sort of black disc fixed to an arm on the top.  In the face of the box were two little square holes, with sides of cedar which converged inward into the box, making a pair of little quadrangular pyramidal holes which ended in a small black circle in the interior.