"Was he offering her to me?" he asked himself. "It almost sounded
like it. If so, it must mean there's something he wants from me
pretty bad. She's beautiful enough to turn any man's head--but
did she know about poor Charlie's murder? --help in it, perhaps?
--as she said she did with the packing-case."

He paused, and all his body was shaken by strong and fierce emotion.

"God help me," he groaned. "I believe I would marry her tomorrow
if I could, innocent or guilty."



CHAPTER XIII

INVISIBLE WRITING


It was the next day that there arrived by the morning post a letter
for Dunn.

Deede Dawson raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw it; and he
did not hand it on until he had made himself master of its contents,
though that did not prove to be very enlightening or interesting.
The note, in fact, merely expressed gratification at the news that
Dunn had secured steady work, a somewhat weak hope that he would
keep it, and a still fainter hope that now perhaps he would be able
to return the ten shillings borrowed, apparently from the writer, at
some time in the past.