“I am not sure,” said he, “why you retained the money and bonds, Hunter. You may have had some vague idea of keeping them, at the time; but afterward I am sure you thought better of it, for you gave up the stolen money, again implicating Toby Clark.”
“I--I wanted to give it all up in the beginning,” groaned Dave, in broken, pleading accents; “but I was bewildered, then--I’ve been bewildered ever since, I think--and the thought came to me that if Hazel should be arrested I would need money to defend her. I didn’t much care what I did, if only I could manage to save Hazel. But--after a time--I thought the danger had passed and no one would now connect her with the theft; so I wanted to get rid of the money, which was a horror to me. I thought the best way was to put it in Toby’s house, as I did the papers.”
“I follow your argument,” said the governor. “Had you been more experienced in crime you would have known that the greatest danger of discovery lay in those anonymous letters. Such things are very easily traced. Do you know that Phoebe Daring was able to connect you with this crime by means of those very letters? As a matter of fact, however, they did not lead to the discovery that Hazel Chandler took Mrs. Ritchie’s box. Two different people saw her carry it home; yet I suppose she has imagined she escaped observation.”
“She--she seemed quite sure of that, sir.”
“No doubt. The criminal is always blind. If the time ever comes when everyone realizes that the law is more clever than the individual, that justice is rampant and will not be denied and that punishment follows an undiscovered crime as surely as if it were discovered, then indeed humanity may shrink from committing lawless acts. The more inexperienced and simple-minded the offender, the more certain he or she is of outwitting all the rest of the world. As a consequence, our prisons are crowded and our trial courts cost us millions of dollars annually. It is so much more simple and safe to obey the laws of humanity and of nations, that I wonder people do not prefer to walk uprightly.”
Dave had no reply to this, although there is no doubt he frankly admitted its truth. He now knew that the governor and Phoebe, and doubtless others, were in possession of the secret he had guarded so jealously, and in this crisis his thoughts were all of the girl he loved and had sought to shield.