"Our young friend has just learned the truth, my dear," said the gray-haired man. "He knows that I am Sargent, and that our stepfather, Willis Morgan, is dead."
Helen stepped quickly to Sargent's side. There was something suggesting filial protection in her attitude. Sargent smiled up at her, reassuringly.
"Probably it is better," he said, "that the whole thing should be known."
"But in a few days we should have been gone," said Helen. "Why have all our hopes been destroyed in this way at the last moment? Is this some of your work," she added bitterly, addressing Lowell--"some of your work as a spy?"
"It was fate," he said. "I have felt from the first that I should not have attempted to escape punishment for my deed. The young man has simply done his duty. He worked with the sole idea of getting at the truth--and it is always the truth that matters most. What difference can it make who is hurt, so long as the truth is known?"
"But how did it become known," asked Helen, "when everything seemed to be so thoroughly in our favor? The innocent men who were suspected had been released. The public was content to let the crime rest at the door of Talpers--a man capable of any evil deed. What has happened to change matters so suddenly?"
"It was the old white horse that betrayed us," said Sargent, with a grim smile. "It shows on what small threads our fates hang balanced. The Greek letter brand still shows in the mud where the horse rolled on the day of the murder on the Dollar Sign hill. When our young friend here saw that bit of evidence, he came directly to the ranch and accused me of knowledge of the crime, all the time thinking I was Willis Morgan."
"Let me continue my work as a spy," broke in Lowell bitterly, "and ask for a complete statement."
"Willis Morgan was my twin brother," said Sargent. "As Willard Sargent he had made a distinguished name for himself among the teachers of Greek in this country. He was a professor at an early age, his bent toward scholarship being opposite to mine, which was along the lines of invention. My brother was a hard, cruel man, beneath a polished exterior. Cynicism was as natural to him as breathing. He married a young and beautiful woman, who had been married before, and who had a little daughter--a mere baby, Willard's wife soon died, a victim of his cynicism and studied cruelty. The future of this helpless stepdaughter of my brother's became a matter of the most intimate concern to me. My brother was mercenary to a marked degree. I had become successful in my inventions of mining machinery. I was fast making a fortune. Willard called upon me frequently for loans, which I never refused. In fact, I had voluntarily advanced him thousands of dollars, from which I expected no return. A mere brotherly feeling of gratitude would have been sufficient repayment for me. But such a feeling my brother never had. His only object was to get as much out of me as he could, and to sneer at me, in his high-bred way, while making a victim of me.