"Laurie--are you sure...."
"I know, I tell you," he answered, and hastened to add:--"Yes, and
there's another man that knows--Pemmican, that's the chap!"
He stopped again and looked down at the small dress, which through all
his excitement he had _held_ tenderly in the crook of his arm.
"I'm going to be a father," he went on, "and it's well that I didn't
kill Hargraves. But I have got to prove it--the world must know that I
didn't kill him. I must prove it--Pemmican will prove it for me--he was
there."
Miriam shook her head.
"You remember his testimony at the trial, Laurie; besides," she added
softly, taking an old newspaper clipping from a small drawer of her
desk, "Pemmican is dead."
"Dead!" His voice rang out in astonishment. "Dead! I didn't know it. Why
didn't you tell me?"
For answer she placed her finger on her lips.
"Why, he died in the county jail, not long after I was tried!" exclaimed
Challoner, who was now reading the newspaper clipping. "Poor chap, the
confinement killed him, I imagine. Well, I never killed Hargraves, and
I'm going to prove it, somehow." He leaned over and kissed a tiny bit of
ruffle. "I'm going to prove it for you and the little one."
"Laurie," insisted Miriam, quivering, "are you sure?"
"I was never surer of anything in my life than this," replied Challoner.
"I tell you, it has all come back to me like a flash. It was you, little
one," he said, bending once more over something imaginary in his arm,
"that brought it back to me."
Miriam had watched him closely.
"Yes, yes," she conceded, "it is true, I can see it--I know." And
sobbing, dropped her head upon his shoulder.
"I've got to prove it," he repeated over and over again, patting her
head affectionately.
"But--Murgatroyd--why, if you were innocent ..." suddenly cried Miriam.
"Well?"
"He ought to know it."
"What do I care about Murgatroyd! What do I care about anybody but you
and the little one that is coming--coming to you and to me!"
"Laurie," breathed Miriam softly, "I'm happy, oh, so happy! I knew--I
felt, somehow, that things would come out right. I don't care whether
you ever prove this--so long as we know. Happy?" she repeated as she
nestled closer to him. "I should think so, with five hundred dollars in
the bank and a small business, and after a while...."
"The most important thing, now, is that I'm certain I did not kill
Hargraves. That makes it easy for the next important thing--for you--my
baby--my little baby."
Reluctantly he yielded the lilliputian garment to Miriam. There was a
knock on the inner door that Miriam had closed; it was followed by
Shirley's entrance into the room.
"I hope," she said gaily, little knowing what had happened, "that we are
going to eat pretty soon, for I never was more hungry in my life."
"The dinner will be an hour late," apologised her hostess, "but you
won't mind, I'm sure, when I tell you _why_."