Nick did not leave Angela until Kate had come back; then he and the Irish girl together unwound the bandages. There was a moment of suspense, but the hands were satin-smooth.
"It seems to be written that you shall save me always from horrors--ever since the night of the burglar," Angela said, when Kate had gone to the next room to dispose of the lint.
"I shall be like a child learning to walk alone when my journeyings with you come to an end."
There was his chance to say, "_Must_ they come to an end?" But Kate was near; and besides, a snub from Angela might stop the "journeyings" then and there. So he answered with a mere compliment, as any man may, meaning nothing at all or a great deal. To save her from danger, it was worth while to have been born, he said. And he remembered, as he had remembered many times, how clear had been the call he had heard to go East; a call like a voice in his ears, crying, "Nick, I want you. Come." He was tempted to be superstitious, and to believe that unconsciously, in some mysterious way, Angela had summoned him to be her knight. To be even more, perhaps, in the end. Who could tell--yet?
It was a good sign, at all events, that she was reluctant to give up the trip; and Nick decided not to risk confiding in the police. Put the affair of the poison-oak into their hands, and they would lasso every one concerned, with yards of red tape! In that case, he and Mrs. May might be detained in San Francisco. No! A private detective would do the trick; and Nick had the name of one pigeon-holed in his brain: Max Wisler, a shrewd fellow, once employed with success by "old Grizzly Gaylor" when there had been a leakage of money and vanishing of cattle on the ranch. Nick went in search of Max Wisler now, in a taxi, and found him at the old address; a queer little frame house, in a part of San Francisco which had been left untouched by the great fire.
Wisler was at home, and remembered Hilliard. He was fair and fat, with a manner somewhat cold; unlit by enthusiasm; yet as he listened a gleam flashed out from his carefully controlled gray eyes, which hinted at hidden fires. He heard Nick to the end of the story, in silence, playing always with the leaves of a book which he had been reading--a volume of Fenimore Cooper's. Still he went on fingering the pages for a minute, when Hilliard paused expecting questions. Then he looked up suddenly, seeming literally to catch Nick's eye and hold it by force.