described bore no possible resemblance to the man she loved, who
asked suddenly:

"Do tell us about the man you're hunting for now--this Rutherford?
Tell us about what he did."

The Easterner gave her a look, and Bella, seeing it, chimed in: "Yes,
sure. Tell us about his crime."

Pete stood up and rolled another cigarette. Try as he might to steady
his fingers, they trembled. He had never heard Hugh's story. He did
not want to hear it. The very name of Rutherford that had, in what
now seemed to him another age, belonged to Hugh and to him was
terrible in his ears. A sickness of dread seized him. Fortunately
the eyes of neither of the men were upon him. Sylvie had their whole
attention.

The detective spoke. "He was a storekeeper back in a university town,
way East, where I came from. He kept a bookshop and had a heap of
book-learning. I remember him myself, though I was a youngster. He
was a wonderful, astonishing sort of chap, though as ugly as the
devil; had a great gift of narration, never told the truth in his
life, I guess, but that only made him all the more entertaining. And
he had a temper--phew! Redhot! He'd fly out and storm and strike in
all directions. That's what did for him. Some fool quarrel about a
book it was, and the man, a frequenter of the shop, a scholar, a
scientist, professor at the university, accused Rutherford of lying.
Rutherford had a heavy brass paper-cutter in his hand. The professor
had a nasty tongue in his head. Well, a tongue's no match for a
paper-cutter. The professor said too much, called Rutherford a