第80章 THE TRAP THAT FAILED(5)

"Just you wait," he went on cheerfully, "and I'll prove to you that I'm on the level about this, that I'm really your friend....

There was a letter came for you to your apartment.My men brought it down to me.I've read it.Here it is.I'll read it to you!"He picked up an envelope, which had been lying on the desk, and drew out the single sheet of paper it contained.Mary watched him, wondering much more than her expression revealed over this new development.Then, as she listened, quick interest touched her features to a new life.In her eyes leaped emotions to make or mar a life.

This was the letter:

"I can't go without telling you how sorry I am.There won't never be a time that I won't remember it was me got you sent up, that you did time in my place.I ain't going to forgive myself ever, and I swear I'm going straight always.

"Your true friend, "HELENMORRIS."

For once, Burke showed a certain delicacy.When he had finished the reading, he said nothing for a long minute--only, sat with his cunning eyes on the face of the woman who was immobile there before him.And, as he looked on her in her slender elegance of form and gentlewomanly loveliness of face, a loveliness intelligent and refined beyond that of most women, he felt borne in on his consciousness the fact that here was one to be respected.He fought against the impression.It was to him preposterous, for she was one of that underworld against which he was ruthlessly at war.Yet, he could not altogether overcome his instinct toward a half-reverent admiration....And, as the letter proved, she had been innocent at the outset.She had been the victim of a mistaken justice, made outcast by the law she had never wronged....His mood of respect was inevitable, since he had some sensibilities, though they were coarsened, and they sensed vaguely the maelstrom of emotions that now swirled in the girl's breast.

To Mary Turner, this was the wonderful hour.In it, the vindication of her innocence was made complete.The story was there recorded in black and white on the page written by Helen Morris.It mattered little--or infinitely much!--that it came too late.She had gained her evil place in the world, was a notorious woman in fact, was even now a prisoner under suspicion of murder.Nevertheless, she felt a thrill of ecstasy over this written document--which it had never occurred to her to wrest from the girl at the time of the oral confession.Now that it had been proffered, the value of it loomed above almost all things else in the world.It proclaimed undeniably the wrong under which she had suffered.She was not the thief the court had adjudged her.Now, there's nobody here but just you and me.Come on, now--put me wise!"Mary was again the resourceful woman who was glad to pit her brain against the contriving of those who fought her.So, at this moment, she seemed pliant to the will of the man who urged her thus cunningly.Her quick glance around the office was of a sort to delude the Inspector into a belief that she was yielding to his lure.

"Are you sure no one will ever know?" she asked, timorously.