"It is," she repeated under her breath, "_empty_."
From his urgent desire to relieve and help her, Pape intruded into her painful abstraction.
"Then it wasn't the box you valued, so much as its contents," he stated to her. "From the shock you have shown on finding it empty, I gather that the safe has been robbed after all. Will you tell me of what?"
Her lips moved. He had to lean low to hear her sporadic utterances.
"I have failed--in a trust. It meant more to me than--it will kill him--simply kill him. He trusted me. I can't understand--who----"
A sudden glance of virile suspicion she flung up into the young Westerner's eyes.
"Who and what are you?" she demanded. "Answer me!"
So unexpected was the girl's attack that Pape felt at a loss how best to meet it. At his look of confusion, she continued in quick, fierce tones:
"I can't see how my affairs concern you. How dare you question me? Why are you around, anyhow, here and at the---- How did you happen to open that safe so easily? Who and what are you--I insist on an answer?"
"My dear, don't let excitement make you unreasonable," Mrs. Sturgis intervened. "Mr. Pape is a detective from the Arsenal. I've told you that. Jasper brought him over after I----"
"He isn't. I know very much better. He is nothing of the sort." The girl arose and straightened before him, all strength now. "I suppose you expect me to tell you all about everything like a little--like a ninny. Well, I won't. I won't tell you anything. _You_ tell _me_!"
"Don't mind in the least. Fact, I'd gladly tell you a lot about the who and what of Peter Stansbury Pape, but you're not in a mood to hear. Out in Montana, where I hail from, we think a lot of straight friendship. If you could trust me, Miss Lauderdale, perhaps I'd be able to demonstrate the sort of friendship I mean."
He faced her with an emphasized look of that sincerity which before had compelled her. But she shifted her eyes stubbornly and insisted:
"It's very strange that on this particular night, when I was to be robbed of something that matters more to me than--It does seem very strange, your forcing your way in as you did."
"He didn't force his way in. I tell you I sent for him," said Aunt Helene.
Pape, however, nodded in agreement. "It was and is strange. I ain't contradicting you, notice. Everything to-night seems mighty strange--to me, as well as to you. If you'd just stop to consider that all friends are strangers to start with, if you'd yield to your instinct, which won't lead you astray in my case, if you'd tag what's worrying you so that I could know where we're headed for----"