"Mr. Benson," she cried, "this has gone too far not to have a full explanation. Has--has Mr. Millard done aught to betray the United States? For that matter, how could he?"
"Madam," Benson replied, gravely, "no Central American republic would want charts of our fortified harbors, or notes concerning the fortifications, the harbor mines, and so on, for the very simple reason that no Central American republic would ever be equal to the task of attempting to invade the United States."
"Did Mr. Millard steal such plans--make such notes?"
She hissed the question sharply, her face now deathly white.
"That is the charge against him," Jack nodded.
"Did he do it?"
"I caught him at it, opposite Fort Craven," young Benson answered.
A low, smothered cry escaped the girl. Her head rested against the side of the carriage as though her brain were reeling. But at length she spoke.
"You--you would not deceive me," she faltered. "Yet tell me more."
"I can"t;" answered Jack, with a shake of his head. "Further than that, I cannot go."
"Oh, I see," she nodded, "and I do not blame you. You feel that, whatever you told me, I would tell him. But I wouldn"t!"
Though the girl"s face was still fearfully pallid, her eyes, as she turned to gaze into the submarine boy"s face, flashed with a new fire.
Then, after a brief pause:
"Whatever he is, or has done, I am an American," she added, quietly.
"This has been a miserable fifteen minutes for me." responded Jack Benson. "I have been torn between the impulse to mind my own business, and the fear that you may be throwing yourself away on a man whom you would promptly learn to despise."
"I shall never give Donald Graves another thought as a lover," the girl rejoined, promptly. "Nor shall I shelter him. I am going to him now!"
"Then you have an appointment with him? You know where to find him?"
"Yes," replied the girl, looking at the submarine boy rather queerly.
"Do you care to go with me to meet Donald Graves--the one you knew as Millard? But I am stupid, or worse. That would be to run you into needless danger--for such a man as I now know Donald Graves to be would be desperate."
"I am not afraid of him," retorted Jack quietly. "If you fear only for me, I beg you to take me to him!"
CHAPTER XXI
DAISY HUSTON DECIDES FOR THE FLAG
"It is a somewhat lonely place, on the outskirts of the city," warned the girl. "Mr. Graves had thought that, if no other chance offered, he might possibly get away by leaving that house and taking to the country roads. For he knows that, if he takes a train at any point, he won"t ride five miles before he"ll find himself in the clutches of a Secret Service man. Oh, he knows how well the trains and the steamboats will be watched. He dreads, even, that the country roads will be watched."
"I don"t know anything about the Secret Service lines that are out,"
Jack confessed, honestly. "Yet I imagine that every possible precaution has been taken to capture Millard--or Graves."
"You do not know my name," cried the girl, as though struck by a sudden thought. "Mr. Benson, you have been wrapped in so much mystery, so much deceit, so much lying and treachery that I won"t even have you guess whether I am telling you the truth. Here is my card-case. Take out a card for yourself."
The request was so much like a command that Benson obeyed. On the card, in Old English script, he read:
"Miss Daisy Huston."
"I thank you, Miss Huston," he acknowledged, gravely, handing back her card-case.
"Will you signal the driver to stop?" she requested. They were now driving through the western part of Washington.
When the driver found himself signaled he reined up, then came to the cab door.
"You know where to go?" she said.
"Yes," nodded the man.
"Drive there, then."
The driver whipped up his horses to a better speed, the vehicle bowling along now.
"I very much fear that I am running you into danger," declared Daisy Huston, soberly. "Mr. Benson, if you decide to leave the cab, or to have me take you back to the center of the city, I shall not imagine you to be lacking in courage."
"I cannot be in any greater danger than you are, Miss Huston," Benson ventured, with a smile.
"Oh, it is much different in my case," argued the girl. "Donald Graves would not attack a woman, especially the woman he had professed to love."
"Miss Huston, do you feel like discussing this matter any further?"
hazarded the young acting naval lieutenant.
"Yes; as much as you wish."
"I confess to being a bit curious."
"About what?"
"Did Millard--Graves, I mean, have any great reason to need money?
More, I mean, than he could earn by honest work?"
"Yes," admitted Miss Daisy. "My mother is dead. Under her will I inherit a considerable little fortune when I am twenty-five. But it is solely on condition that I have my father"s permission to marry the man of my choice. I could remain single until twenty-five, but I am only nineteen, and Mr. Graves complained that it would be an eternity to wait."
"Then your father did not approve Millard? I am going to call him that because the other name is unfamiliar."
"My father feared that Donald was a fortune hunter. He said he would be satisfied if Donald could show that he were rich in his own name."
"So, then, Graves, or Millard, hit upon the plan of stealing our harbor fortification secrets and selling them to another government," said Jack, meditatingly. "Yet I am puzzled to understand how he found the chance. There are no foreigners openly engaged in buying our national secrets."
"I think I can explain all that, though it will be but guess-work,"
replied Daisy Huston, thoughtfully. "My father was for some years minister to Sweden. He is still well acquainted among foreign diplomats here in Washington. Some of them are often at our house. Donald must have met one there who tempted him, or pointed the way to a fortune.