Then he called: "I'd rather you'd not say anything more, Ba'tiste.

Words aren't much use--without something to back them up." And he knew that this possibility was all but gone.

Tricked! For now he realized that Agnes Jierdon had stood by him at a time when her supposed confidence and trust could do no more for him than cheer him and cause him to trust her to the end that,--what?
Had it been she who had slipped the necessary papers of the contract and the lease into the mass of formalities which he had signed without even looking at the contents of more than the first page or two of the pile?
They had been so many technical details, merely there for signature; he had signed dozens before.

It would have been easy.
But Houston forced back the thought.

He himself knew what it meant to be unjustly accused.