During the days which followed, Kirk suffered more than he chose to confess even to his attorney.  In the first place, it was hard to be denied all knowledge of what was going on—­Anson would tell him little, except that he was working every day—­and, then, too, the long hours of solitude gnawed at his self-control.  Runnels managed to see him once or twice, reporting that, so far as he could learn, Chiquita had disappeared.  He took a message from Kirk to her, but brought back word that he could not deliver it.  Kirk wondered if she could really believe those frightful half-complete newspaper accounts, or if she had been unable to withstand the combined weight of her whole family, and had given up.  It was almost too much to hope that a girl reared as she had been could keep her mind unpoisoned, with all those lying tongues about her.  And, besides, she had the Spanish ideas of morality, which would make the actions of which he was accused seem doubly shocking.  The more he speculated upon the cause of her silence, the wilder grew his fancies, until it became a positive torture to think of her at all.  Instead, his thoughts turned to Edith Cortlandt in a curiously uninterested way.  Her attitude was a problem.  Perhaps she would leave him to his fate.  Reviewing the circumstances coldly, he could hardly blame her.

It was on Sunday, a week after his arrest, that she came to him.  He was surprised to see the ravages that this short time had made in her, for she was pale and drawn and weary-looking, as if from sleeplessness.  Strange to say, these marks of suffering did not detract from her appearance, but rather enhanced her poise and distinction.  She was not even veiled.  On the contrary, she had driven openly to the police barracks, and ordered her coachman to wait in the street outside, then demanded to be shown to Anthony’s cell.

“I’m awfully glad to see you, Mrs. Cortlandt,” he said, as she extended her hand.  “But do you think it was wise for you to come?”

She shrugged.  “People can say no more than they have already said.  My name is on every tongue, and a little more gossip can make matters no worse.  I had to come.  I just couldn’t stay away.  I wonder if you can realize what I have been through.”

“It must have been terrible,” he said, gently.

“Yes, I have paid.  It seems to me that I have paid for everything I ever did.  Those newspaper stories nearly killed me, but it wasn’t that so much as the thought that you were suffering for my acts.”

“I’m very sorry.  You never thought for a moment that I did what they claim?”

“No, no!  It has all been a mistake from the first.  I was sure of that.”

“You heard what those two men testified?”

“Bah!  That is Ramon Alfarez—­but he can do nothing.”

“Nothing!  I don’t call a week in the Bastile ‘nothing.’  Why, he has perjured two witnesses already, and I dare say he’ll have the whole native population swearing against me when the trial comes up.”