And Leslie babbled on in blissful ignorance of, not to say disregard for, this strange ghost at the feast, for, to Booth's mind, the ghost of Challis Wrandall was there.

Turning to Miss Castleton with a significant look in his eyes, meant to call her attention to Mrs. Wrandall, he was amazed to find that every vestige of colour had gone from the girl's face. She was listening to Wrandall and replying in monosyllables, but that she was aware of the other woman's abstraction was not for an instant to be doubted. Suddenly, after a quick glance at Sara's face, she looked squarely into Booth's eyes, and he saw in hers an expression of actual concern, if not alarm.

Leslie was in the middle of a sentence when Sara laughed aloud, without excuse or reason. The next instant she was looking from one to the other in a dazed sort of way, as if coining out of a dream.

Wrandall turned scarlet. There had been nothing in his remarks to call for a laugh, he was quite sure of that. Flushing slightly, she murmured something about having thought of an amusing story, and begged him to go on, she wouldn't be rude again.

He had little zest for continuing the subject and sullenly disposed of it in a word or two.

"What the devil was there to laugh at, Brandy?" he demanded of his friend after the women had left them together on the porch a few minutes later. Hetty had gone upstairs with Mrs. Wrandall, her arm clasped tightly about the older woman's waist.

"I dare say she was thinking about you falling a mile or two," said Booth pleasantly.

But he was perplexed.



CHAPTER XI

MAN PROPOSES



The young men cooled their heels for an hour before word was brought down to them that Mrs. Wrandall begged to be excused for the afternoon on account of a severe headache. Miss Castleton was with her, but would be down later on. Meanwhile they were to make themselves at home, and so on and so forth.

Booth took his departure, leaving Leslie in sole possession of the porch. He was restless, nervous, excited; half-afraid to stay there and face Hetty with the proposal he was determined to make, and wholly afraid to lorsake the porch and run the risk of missing her altogether if she came down as signified. Several things disturbed him. One was Hetty's deplorable failure to hang on his words as he had fondly expected her to do; and then there was that very—disquieting laugh of Sara's. A hundred times over he repeated to himself that sickening question: "What the devil was there to laugh at?" and no answer suggested itself. He was decidedly cross about it.

Another hour passed. His heels were quite cool by this time, but his blood was boiling. This was a deuce of a way to treat a fellow who had gone to the trouble to come all the way out in a stuffy train, by Jove, it was! With considerable asperity he rang for a servant and commanded him to fetch a time table, and to be quick about it, as there might be a train leaving before he could get back if it took him as long to find it as it took other people to remember their obligations! His sarcasm failed to impress Murray, who said he thought there was a schedule in Mrs. Wrandall's room, and he'd get it as soon as the way was clear, if Mr. Wrandall didn't mind waiting.

"If I minded waiting," snapped Leslie, "I wouldn't be here now."

"It's the thing most people object to in the country, sir," said Murray consolingly. "Waiting for trains, sir."

"And the sunset," added Mr. Wrandall pointedly, with a westward glare.

"We don't mind that, sir. We rather look forward to it. It means one day less of waiting for the trains." It was rather cryptic, but Leslie was too deeply absorbed in self-pity to take account of the pathos in Murray's philosophy.

"What time is it, Murray?"

"Five-twenty, Mr. Wrandall."

"That's all, Murray."

"Thank you, sir."

As the footman was leaving, Sara's automobile whirled up to the porte-cochere.

"Who is going out, Murray?" he called in surprise.

"Miss Castleton, sir. For the air, sir."

"The deuce you say!" gasped the harassed Mr. Wrandall. It was a pretty kettle of fish!

Hetty appeared a few minutes later, attired for motoring.

"Oh, there you are," she said, espying him. "I am going for a spin. Want to come along?"

He swallowed hard. The ends of his moustache described a pair of absolutely horizontal exclamation points. "If you don't mind being encumbered," he remarked sourly.

"I don't in the least mind," said she sweetly.

"Where are you going?" he asked without much enthusiasm. He wasn't to be caught appearing eager, not he. Besides, it wasn't anything to be flippant about.

"Yonder," she said, with a liberal sweep of her arm, taking in the whole landscape. "And be home in time to dress for dinner," she added, as if to relieve his mind.

"Good Lord!" he groaned, "do we have to eat again?"

"We have to dress for it, at least," she replied.

"I'll go," he exclaimed, and ambled off to secure a cap and coat.

"Sara has planned for a run to Lenox to-morrow if it doesn't rain," she informed him on his return.

"Oh," he said, staring. "Booth gets a day off on the portrait then."

"Being Sunday," she smiled. "We knock off on Sundays and bank holidays. But, after all, he doesn't really get a holiday. He is to go with us, poor fellow."

He looked as though he expected nothing. He could only sit back and wonder what the deuce Sara meant by behaving like this.

It was not by way of being a profitable excursion, if we are to judge by the amount of pleasure Leslie derived from the two hours' spin through the cool, leafy byways of the forest with the obj ect of his heart's desire on the seat beside him. He tried to screw up his courage to the point of asking her why he shouldn't kiss her band, which might have opened the way to more profound interrogations, but somehow he felt unable to cope with the serenity that confronted him. Moreover, he had a horrible conviction that the chauffeur was a brute with abnormally long ears and a correspondingly short sense of honour. No, it was not the time or the place for love-making. He would have to be content to bide his time till after dinner, which now began to lose some of its disadvantages. There was a most engaging nook, he remembered, in the corner of the garden facing the Sound, where the shadows were deep; where sentiment could thrive on its own ecstasy; where no confounded menial dared to show his face—although he had to admit that the chauffeur was most punctilious in that respect.

And so he was satisfied to sit back in the corner of the seat and feed his senses on the lovely creature before him. He had never seen her so beautiful, so utterly worth having as now. He was conscious of a great, overwhelming sense of pride, somewhat smothering in its vastness. She was a creature to be proud of! His heart was very full.

They returned at seven. Dinner was unusually merry. Sara appeared to have recovered from her indisposition; there was colour in her cheeks and life in her smile. He took it to be an omen of good fortune, and was immeasurably confident. The soft cool breezes of the star-lit night blew visions of impending happiness across his lively imagination; fanned his impatience with gentle ardour; filled him with surpressed sighs of contentment, and made him willing to forego the delight of conquest that he might live the longer in serene anticipation of its thrills.

Ten o'clock came. He arose and stretched himself in a sort of ecstasy. His heart was thumping loudly, his senses swam. Walking to the verandah rail he looked out across the moonlit Sound, then down at the selected nook over against the garden wall—spot to be immortalised!—and actually shivered. In ten minutes' time, or even less, she would be down there in his arms! Exquisite meditations!

He turned to her with an engaging smile, in which she might have discerned a prophecy, and asked her to come with him for a stroll along the wall. And so he cast the die.

Hetty sent a swift, appealing look at Sara's purposely averted face. Leslie observed the act, but misinterpreted its meaning.

"Oh, it is quite warm," he said quickly. "You won't need a wrap," he added, and in spite of himself his voice trembled. Of course she wouldn't need a wrap!

"I have a few notes to write," said Sara, rising. She deliberately avoided the look in Hetty's eyes. "You will find me in the library."

She stood in the doorway and watched them descend to the terrace, a sphinx-like smile on her lips. Hetty seemed very tall and erect, as one going to meet a soldier's fate.

Then Sara entered the house and sat down to wait.

A long time after a door closed stealthily in a distant part of the house—the sun-parlour door, she knew by direction.

A few minutes later an upstairs door creaked on its hinges. Some one had come in from the mellow night, and some one had been left outside.

Many minutes passed. She sat there at her father's writing table and waited for the other to come in. At last quick, heavy footfalls sounded on the tiled floor outside and then came swiftly down the hall toward the small, remote room in which she sat. She looked up as he unceremoniously burst into the room.

He came across and stood over her, an expression of utter bewilderment in his eyes. There was a ghastly smile on his lips.

"Damn it all, Sara," he said shrilly, "she—-she turned me down."

He seemed incapable of comprehension.

She was unmoved. Her eyes narrowed, but that was the only sign of emotion.

"I—I can't believe—" he began querulously. "Oh, what's the use? She won't have me. 'Gad! I'm trembling like a leaf. Where's Watson? Have him get me something to drink. Never mind! I'll get it from the sideboard. I'm—I'm damned!"

He dropped heavily into a chair at the end of the table and looked at her with glazed eyes. As she stared back at him she had the curious feeling that he had shrunk perceptibly, that his clothes hung rather limply on him. His face seemd to have lost all of its smart symmetry; there was a looseness about the mouth and chin that had never been there before. The saucy, arrogant moustache sloped dejectedly.

"I fancy you must have gone about it very badly," she said, pursing her lips.

"Badly?" he gasped. "Why—why, good heavens, Sara, I actually pleaded with her," he went on, quite pathetically. "All but got down on my knees to her. Damn me, if I can understand myself doing it either. I must have lost my head completely. Begged like a love-sick school-boy! And she kept on saying no—no—no! And I, like a blithering ass, kept on telling her I couldn't live without her, that I'd make her happy, that she didn't know what she was saying, and—But, good Lord, she kept on saying no! Nothing but no! Do—do you think she meant to say no? Could it have been hysteria? She said it so often, over and over again, that it might have been hysteria. I never thought of that. I—"

"No, Leslie, it wasn't hysteria, you may be sure of that," she said deliberately. "She meant it, old fellow."

He sagged deeper in the chair.

"I—I can't get it through my head," he muttered.

"As I said before, you did it badly," she said. "You took too much for granted. Isn't that true?"

"God knows I didn't EXPECT her to refuse me," he exclaimed, glaring at her. "Would I have been such a fool as to ask her if I thought there was the remotest chance of being—" The very thought of the word caused it to stick in his throat. He swallowed hard.

"You really love her?" she demanded.

"Love her?" There was a sob in his voice. "I adore her, Sara. I can't live without her. And the worst of it is, I love her now more than I did before, Oh, it's appalling! It's horrible! What am I to do, Sara? What AM I to do?"

"Be a man for a little while, that's all," she said coolly.

"Don't joke with me," he groaned.

"Go to bed, and when you see her in the morning tell her that you understand. Thank her for what she has done for you. Be—"

"Thank her?" he almost shouted.

"Yes; for destroying all that is detestable in you, Leslie,—your self-conceit, your arrogance, your false notions concerning yourself,—in a word, your egotism."

He blinked incredulously. "Do you know what you're saying?" he gasped.

She went on as if she hadn't heard him.

"Assure her that she is to feel no compunction for what she has done, that you are content to be her loyal, devoted friend to the end of your days."

"But, hang it, Sara, I LOVE her!"

"Don't let her suspect that you are humiliated. On the contrary, give her to understand that you are cleansed and glorified."

"What utter tommy—"

"Wait! Believe me, it is your only chance. You will have to learn some time that you can't ride rough-shod among angels. Think it over, old fellow. You have had a good lesson. Profit by it."

"You mean I'm to sit down and twirl my thumbs and let some other chap snap her up under my very nose? Well, I guess not!"

"Not necessarily. If you take it manfully, she may discover a new interest in you. Don't breathe a word of love to her. Go on as if nothing had happened. Don't forget that I told you in the beginning not to take no for an answer."

He drooped once more, biting his lip. "I don't see how I can ever tell mother that she refused—"

"Why tell her?" she inquired, rising.

His eyes brightened. "By Jove, I shan't," he exclaimed.

"I am going up to the poor child now," she went on. "I dare say you have frightened her almost to death. Naturally she is in great distress. I shall try to convince her that her decision does not alter her position in this house. I depend on you to do your part, Leslie. Make it easy for her to stay on with me."

He mellowed to the verge of tears.

"I can't keep on coming out here after this, as I've been doing, Sara."

"Don't be silly! Of course you can. This will blow over."

"Blow over?" he almost gasped.

"I mean the first effects. Try being a martyr for a while, Leslie. It isn't a bad plan, I can assure you. It may interest you to know that Challis proposed to me three times before I accepted him, and yet I—I loved him from the beginning."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, coming to his feet with a new light in his eyes. The hollows in his cheeks seemed to fill out perceptibly.

"Good-night!"

"I say, Sara dear, you'll—you'll help me a bit, won't you? I mean, you'll talk it over with her and—"

"My sympathy is entirely with Miss Castleton," she said from the doorway. His jaw dropped.

He was still ruminating over the callousness of the world in respect to lovers when she mounted the stairs and tapped firmly on Hetty's door.

His hopes began to revive. A new thought had entered in and lodged securely among them, bracing them up amazingly. "By Jove," he said to himself, staring hard at the floor, "I dare say I did go about it badly. Sara was clever enough to see it. I must have taken her off her feet with my confounded earnestness. Girls do lose their heads, bless 'em, if you go at them with a rush. I'm sure she'll look at it differently when she's had time to compose herself." He was perplexed, however, over something he had not revealed to Sara, and his sudden frown proved that it was still disturbing him. "I can't for the life of me understand why she should have been so damned horrified at the idea."

He started for the dining-room, recalling his need of a drink, but changed his mind in the hall. Grabbing up his hat and stick, he darted out of the house and was soon swinging briskly down the moonlit avenue. He had come to the conclusion that a long walk would prove settling; and moreover it wasn't a stupid idea to go over and have his drink with Brandon Booth. The longer he walked, the more springy his stride. Sara was quite right; he HAD gone about it badly. He'd go about it differently next time.

Half way to Booth's cottage his pace slackened. A disconcerting thought struck him, almost like a dash of cold water in the face: Was she in love with Booth? He sat down on the rugged stone fence to ponder. A cold perspiration broke out all over him. When he next resumed his walk, his back was towards Booth's cottage. He attributed the perspiration to the violence of his exercise.

Hetty Castleton was standing in the middle of her room when Sara entered. From her position, it was evident that she had stopped short in her nervous, excited pacing of the floor. She was very pale but there was a dogged, set expression about her mouth.

"Come in, dear," she said, in a manner that showed she had been expecting the visit. "Have you seen him?"

Sara closed the door, and then stood with her back against it, regarding her agitated friend with serious, compassionate eyes.

"Yes. He is terribly upset. It was a blow to him, Hetty."

"I am sorry for him, Sara. He was so dreadfully in earnest. But, thank God, it is over!" She threw back her head and breathed deeply. "That horrible, horrible nightmare is ended. I suppose it had to be. But the mockery of it—think of it, Sara!—the damnable mockery of it!"

"Poor Leslie!" sighed the other. "Poor old Leslie."

Hetty's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, I AM sorry for him. He didn't deserve it. God in heaven, if he really knew everything! If he knew why I could not listen to him, why I almost screamed when he held my hands in his and begged—actually begged me to—Oh, it was ghastly, Sara!"

She covered her face with her hands, and swayed as if about to fall. Sara came quickly to her side. Putting an arm about the quivering shoulders, she led the girl to the broad window seat and threw open the blinds.

"Don't speak of it, dearest,—don't think of THAT. Sit here quietly in the air and pull yourself together. Let me talk to you. Let me tell you how deeply distressed I am, not only on your account, but his."

They were silent for a long time, the girl lying still and almost breathless against the other's shoulders. She was still wearing the delicate blue dinner gown, but in her fingers was the exquisite pearl necklace Sara had given her for Christmas. She had taken it off and had forgotten to drop it in her jewel box.

"I suppose he will go up to the city early," she said monotonously.

"Leslie is a better loser than you think, my dear," said Sara, looking out over the tops of the cedars. "He will not run away."

Hetty looked up in alarm. "You mean he will persist in—in his attentions," she cried.

"Oh, no. I don't believe you will find him to be the bugbear you imagine. He can take defeat like a man. He is devoted to you, he is devoted to me. Your decision no doubt wrecks his fondest hope in life, but it doesn't make a weakling of him."

"I don't quite understand—"

"He is sustained by the belief that he has paid you the highest honour a man can pay to a woman. There is no reason why he should turn his back on you, as a sulky boy might do. No, my dear, I think you may count on him as your best, most loyal friend from this night on. He has just said to me that his greatest pain lies in the fear that you may not be willing to accept him as a simple, honest, unpresuming friend since—"

"Oh, Sara, if he will only be that and nothing more!" cried the girl wonderingly.

Sara smiled confidently. "I fancy you haven't much to fear in that direction, my dear. It isn't in Leslie Wrandall's make-up to court a second repulse. He is all pride. The blow it suffered to-night can't be repeated—at least, not by the same person."

"I am so sorry it had to be Leslie," murmured Hetty.

"Be nice to him, Hetty. He deserves that much of you, to say the least. I should miss him if he found it impossible to come here on account of—"

"I wouldn't have that happen for the world," cried the girl in distress. "He is your dearest friend. Send me away, Sara, if you must. Don't let anything stand in the way of your friendship for Leslie. You depend on him for so much, dear. I can't bear the thought of—"

"Hush, dearest! You are first in my love. Better for me to lose all the others and still have you."

The girl looked at her in wonder for a long time. "Oh, I know you mean it, Sara, but—but how can it be true?"

"Put yourself in my place," was all that Sara said in reply, and her companion had no means of translating the sentence.

She could only remain mute and wondering, her eyes fixed on that other mystery: the cameo face in the moon that hung high above the sombre forest.

"If it were not for the trip to Lenox," she murmured plaintively.

"The trip is off," announced Sara. She too was staring at the cloudless sky. "There will be rain tomorrow."

"It is very clear to-night, Sara."

"Do you hear that little wail in the trees—as if a child were whimpering out there? That is the plaint of the fairies who live in the buds and twigs, in the flower cups and mosses. They famish, their gods will hear. Their gods hear when ours is deaf. You will see. There will be clouds over us to-morrow and we will breathe the mist."

The girl shivered.

Many minutes afterward she said, as one who marvels: "I hear the promise in the wind, Sara,—the new, cool wind."

"The gods are whispering. Soon the fairies and elves will come forth to revel. Ah, what a wonderful thing the night is!"

"The fairies," mused the girl. "You believe in them?"

"Resolutely."

"And I too."

"We will never grow old, my dear," said Sara. "That is what the fairies are for: to keep those who love them young."

Hetty had relaxed. Her soft young body was warm again; that ineffably feminine charm was revived in her.

"Poor Leslie," murmured Sara, a long time afterward, a dreamy note in her voice. "I can't put him out of my thoughts. He will never get over it. I have never seen one so stricken and yet so brave. He would have been more than a husband to you, Hetty. It is in him to be a slave to the woman he loves. I know him well, poor boy."

Hetty was silent, brooding. Sara resumed her thoughtful observations.

"Why should you let what happened months ago stand in the way of—"

She got no farther than that. With an exclamation of horror, the girl sprang away from her and glowered at her with dilated eyes.

"My God, Sara!" she whispered hoarsely. "Are you mad?"

The other sighed. "I suppose you must think it of me," she said dismally. "We are made differently, you and I. If I cared for a man, nothing in all this world could stand between me and him. My love would fortify me against the enemy we are prone to call conscience. It would justify me in slaying the thing we call conscience. In your heart, Hetty, you have not wronged Leslie Wrandall by any act of yours. You owe him no reparation. On the contrary, it is not far out of the way to say that he owes you something, but of course it is a claim for recompense and resolves itself into a sentimental debt, so there's really no use discussing it."

Hetty was still staring. "You don't mean to say you would have me marry Challis Wrandall's brother?" she said, in a sort of stupefaction.

Sara shook her head. "I mean this: you would be justified in permitting Leslie to glorify that which his brother desecrated; your womanhood, my dear."

"My God, Sara!" again fell in a hoarse whisper from the girl's lips.

"I simply voice my point of view," explained Sara calmly. "As I said before, we look at things differently."

"I can't believe you mean what you have said," cried Hetty. "Why—why, if I loved him with all my heart, soul and body I could not even think of—Oh, I shudder to think of it!"

"I love you," continued Sara, fixing her mysterious eyes on those of the girl, "and yet you took from me something more than a brother. I love you, knowing everything, and I am paying in full the debt he owes to you. Leslie, knowing nothing, is no less your debtor. All this is paradoxical, I know, my dear, but we must remember that while other people may be indebted to us, we also owe something to ourselves. We ought to take pay from ourselves. Please do not conclude that I am urging or even advising you to look with favour upon Leslie Wrandall's honourable, sincere proposal of marriage. I am merely trying to convince you that you are entitled to all that any man can give you in this world of ours,—we women all are, for that matter."

"I was sure that you couldn't ask me to marry him. I couldn't believe—"

"Forget what I have said, dearest, if it grieves you," cried Sara warmly. She arose and drew the girl close to her. "Kiss me, Hetty." Their lips met. The girl's eyes were closed, but Sara's were wide open and gleaming. "It is because I love you," she said softly, but she did not complete the sentence that burned in her brain. To herself she repeated: "It is because I love you that I would scourge you with Wrandalls!"

"You are very good to me, Sara," sobbed Hetty.

"You WILL be nice to Leslie?"

"Yes, yes! If he will only let me be his friend."

"He asks no more than that. Now, you must go to bed."

Suddenly, without warning, she held the girl tightly in her arms. Her breathing was quick, as of one moved by some sharp sensation of terror. When Hetty, in no little wonder, opened her eyes Sara's face was turned away, and she was looking over her shoulder as if cause for alarm had come from behind.

"What is it?" cried Hetty anxiously.

She saw the look of dread in her companion's eyes, even as it began to fade.

"I don't know," muttered Sara. "Something, I can't tell what, came over me. I thought some one was stealing up behind me. How silly of me."

"Ah," said Hetty, with an odd smile, "I can understand how you felt."

"Hetty, will you take me in with you to-night?" whispered Sara nervously. "Let me sleep with you. I can't explain it, but I am afraid to be alone to-night." The girl's answer was a glad smile of acquiescence. "Come with me, then, to my bedroom while I change. I have the queerest feeling that some one is in my room. I don't want to be alone. Are you afraid?"

Hetty held back, her face blanching.

"No, I am not afraid," she cried at once, and started toward the door.

"There IS some one in this room," said Sara a few moments later, when they were in the big bedroom down the hall.

"I—I wonder," murmured Hetty.

And yet neither of them looked about in search for the intruder!

Far into the night Sara sat in the window of Hetty's dressing-room, her chin sunk low in her hands, staring moodily into the now opaque night, her eyes sombre and unblinking, her body as motionless as death itself. The cooling wind caressed her and whispered warnings into her unheeding ears, but she sat there unprotected against its chill, her night-dress damp with the mist that crept up with sinister stealth from the sea.

In the flats below, a vast army of frogs shrilled in ceaseless chatter; night birds and insects responded to the bedlam challenge; the hoarse monotonous grunts of a fog-horn came up from the Sound. There were people out there, asleep in passage.

A cat mewed piteously somewhere in the garden. She was curiously disturbed by this. She hated cats. There had never been one on the place before.



CHAPTER XII

THE APPROACH OF A MAN NAMED SMITH



Mr. Redmond Wrandall, grey and gaunt and somewhat wistful, rode slowly through the leafy lane, attended some little distance behind by Griggs the groom, who slumped in the saddle and thought only of the sylvan dell to curse it with poetic license. (Ever since Mr. Wrandall had been thrown by his horse in the Park a few years before his wife had insisted on having a groom handy in case he lost his seat again: hence Griggs.) It sometimes got on Mr. Wrandall's nerves, having Griggs lopping along like that, but there didn't seem to be any way out of it, nor was there the remotest likelihood that the groom himself might one day be spilled and broken in many places while engaged in this obnoxious espionage.

Mr. Wrandall was grey because he was old, he was gaunt because he was old, and he usually was somewhat wistful for the same reason. He nourished the lament that he had grown old before his time, despite the sixty odd years that lay behind him. He was always a trifle annoyed with himself for not having demanded more of his youth. Griggs, therefore, was a physical insult, any way you looked at him: his very presence in the road behind was a blatant, house-top sort of proclamation that he, Redmond Wrandall, was in his dotage, and that was something Mr. Wrandall would never have admitted if he had had anything to say about it.

To-day he was riding over to Southlook to visit his daughter-in-law and one whom he looked upon as a prospective daughter-in-law. It was Wednesday and the family had been in the country since Monday. His wife and Vivian had motored over on Tuesday. They were letting no grass grow under their feet, notwithstanding a sudden and unexplained period of procrastination on the part of Leslie, who had gone off for a fortnight's fishing in Maine. Moreover, so far as they knew, he had departed without proposing to Miss Castleton: an oversight which deprived his mother of at least two weeks of activity along obvious lines. Naturally, it was quite impossible to discuss the future with Miss Castleton under the circumstances, and it was equally out of the question to discuss it with security in the very constricted circle that Mrs. Wrandall affected in the country. It really was too bad of Leslie! He should have known better.

Half way to Southlook, Mr. Wrandall, turning a bend in the road, caught sight of two people walking some distance ahead: a man and a woman. They were several hundred yards away, and travelling in the direction he was going. He pulled his horse down to a walk, a circumstance that for the moment escaped the attention of Griggs, who rode alongside before he quite realised what had happened.

"Griggs," said his master, staring at the pedestrians, "when did my son return?"

Griggs grasped the situation at a glance—a rather vague and imperfect glance, however. "This morning, sir," he replied promptly, although he was as much at sea as his master.

"I understood Mrs. Wrandall to say he was not expected before Saturday."

"Yes, sir. He came unexpected, sir."

"Well," said Mr. Wrandall, with an indulgent smile, "we will not ride them down."

"No, indeed, sir," consented Griggs, with a wink that Mr. Wrandall did not see.

The pleased, satisfied smile grew on Redmond Wrandall's gaunt old face: not reminiscent, I am bound to say, yet reflective.

The tall young man and the girl far ahead apparently were not aware of the scrutiny. They appeared to be completely absorbed in each other. At last, coming to a footpath diverging from the macadam, they stopped and parleyed. Then they turned into this narrow, tortuous path over the hillside and were lost to view.

Mr. Wrandall's smile broadened as he touched his horse lightly with the crop. Coming to the obscure little bypath, he shot a surreptitious glance into the fastnesses of the wood, but did not slacken his speed. No one was in sight.

"I dare say the danger is past, Griggs," he said humorously. "They are safe."

"I believe you, sir," said Griggs, also forgetting himself so far as to steal a look over his right shoulder.

It was Mr. Wrandall's design to ride on to Southlook and surprise Leslie and his inamorata at the lodge gates, where he would wait for them. Arriving there, he dismounted and turned his steed over to Griggs, with instructions to ride on. He would join Mr. Leslie and Miss Castleton and walk with them for the remainder of the distance.

He sat down on the rustic bench and lighted a cigar. The lodge-keeper saluted him from the garden below. Later the keeper's small son came up and from the opposite side of the roadway regarded him with the wide, curious gaze of a four-year-old. Mr. Wrandall disliked children. He made no friendly overtures. The child stood his ground, which was in a sense disconcerting, althought he couldn't tell why. He felt like saying "shoo!" Presently the keeper's collie came up and sniffed his puttees, all the while looking askance. Mr. Wrandall said: "Away with you," and the dog retreated with some dignity to the steps where he laid down and fixed his eyes on the stranger.

Half-an-hour passed. Mr. Wrandall frowned as he looked at his watch. Another quarter of an hour went by. He changed his position, and the dog lifted his head, without wagging his tail.

"'Pon my soul," said Mr. Wrandall in some annoyance.

Just then the dog and the child deflected their common stare. He was at first grateful, then interested. The child was beaming, the dog's tail was thumping a merry tattoo on the wooden step. Footsteps crunched on the gravel and he turned to look, although it was not the direction from which he expected his son and Miss Castleton.

He came to his feet, plainly perplexed. Miss Castleton approached, but the fellow beside her was not Leslie.

"How are you, Mr. Wrandall?" called out the young man cheerily, crossing the road.

"Good afternoon, Brandon," said Mr. Wrandall, nonplussed. "How do you do, Miss Castleton? Delighted to see you looking so well. Where did you leave my son?"

"Haven't seen him," said Booth. "Is he back?"

Mr. Redmond Wrandall swallowed hard.

"I was so informed," he replied, with an effort.

"Are you not coming up to the house, Mr. Wrandall?" inquired Miss Castleton, and he thought he detected a note of appeal in her voice.

"Certainly," he announced, taking his place beside her. To himself he was saying: "This young blade has been annoying her, confound him."

"Miss Castleton had a note from Leslie this morning, saying he wouldn't start home till Friday," said Booth, puzzled. "You don't mind my saying so, Miss Castleton?"

"Not at all. I am sure he said Friday."

"I fancy he did say Friday," said Mr. Wrandall. "I think Griggs had been drinking."

"Griggs?" inquired the two in unison.

He volunteered no more than that. He was too busily engaged in wondering what his son could be thinking of, to leave this delightful girl to the tender mercies of a handsome, fascinating chap like Brandon Booth. He didn't relish the look of things. She was agitated, suspiciously so; and Booth wasn't what one would describe as perfectly at ease. There was something in the air, concluded Leslie's father.

"I hear you are coming over to spend a fortnight with us, Miss Castleton," said he pleasantly.

Hetty started. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Wrandall," she said, although he had spoken very distinctly.

"Leslie mentioned it a—oh, some time ago, my dear. This is the first time I have seen you, otherwise I should have added my warmest appeal for you to come early and to stay late. Ha-ha! Hope you will find your way to our place, Brandon. You are always a most welcome visitor."

The girl walked on in silence, her lips set with curious firmness. Booth looked at her and indulged in a queer little smile, to which she responded with a painful flush.

"Vivian expects to have a few friends out at the same time—very quietly, you know, and without much of a hurrah. Young ladies you ought to know in New York, my dear Miss Castleton. I dare say you will remember all of them, Brandon."

"I dare say," said Booth, without interest.

"I understand the portrait is finished," went on the old gentleman, blissfully oblivious to the disturbance he had created. "Mrs. Wrandall says it is wonderful, Brandon. You won't mind showing it to me? I am very much interested."

"Glad to have you see it, sir."

"Thanks."

He slackened his pace, an uneasy frown appearing between his eyes.

"I am almost afraid to tell Sara the news we have had from town this morning. She is so opposed to notoriety and all that sort of thing. Poor girl, she's had enough to drive one mad, I fear, with all that wretched business of a year ago."

Hetty stopped in her tracks. She went very white.

"What news, Mr. Wrandall?"

"They say they have stumbled upon a clew,—an absolutely indisputable clew. Smith had me on the wire this morning. He is the chief operative, you understand, Miss Castleton. He informs me that his original theory is quite fully substantiated by this recent discovery. If you remember, he gave it as his opinion a year ago that the woman was not—er—I may say, of the class catalogued as fast. He is coming out to-morrow to see me."

Things went suddenly black before her eyes, but in an instant she regained control of herself.

"They have had many clews, Mr. Wrandall," she complained, shaking her head.

"I know," he replied; "and this one may be as futile as the rest. Smith appears to be absolutely certain this time, however."

"I understood that Mrs. Wrandall—I mean Mrs. Challis Wrandall—refused to offer a reward," said Booth. "These big detective agencies are not keen about—"

"There is a ten thousand dollar reward still standing, Brandon," said Mr. Wrandall.

Again the girl started.

"That isn't generally known, sir," observed the painter. "Leslie told me there was no reward."

"It was privately arranged," explained Leslie's father.

They came in sight of the house at that moment, and the subject was dropped, for Sara was approaching them in earnest conversation with Mr. Carroll, her lawyer.

They met at the edge of the lower basin, where the waters trickled down from an imposing Italian fountain on the level above, forming a deep, clear pool to which the lofty sky lent unfathomable depths. To the left of the basin there was a small tea-house, snug in the shadow of the cypresses that lined the crest of the hill. A series of rough stone steps wound down to the water's edge and the boathouse.

"Mr. Carroll is the bearer of startling news, Mr. Wrandall," said Sara, after the greetings. There was a trace of the sardonic in her voice.

"Indeed?" said Mr. Wrandall gravely.

"I was not aware, sir," said the old lawyer stiffly, and with a positive glare, "that your detectives were such unmitigated asses as they now appear to be."

"I fail to understand, Mr. Carroll," with considerable loftiness.

"That confounded rascal Smith called to see me this morning, sir. He is a rogue, sir. He—"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carroll," protested Mr. Wrandall, in a far from conciliatory manner.

"It seems, in short, that he has been working on a very intimate clew," said Sara, staring fixedly at her father-in-law's face.

"So he informed me over the 'phone this morning," said he, rather taken a-back. "However, he did not go into the details. I am here, Sara, to tell you that he is coming out to-morrow. I want to ask you to come over to my place at—"

"That is out of the question, sir," exclaimed Mr. Carroll vehemently.

"My dear Mr. Carroll—" began Wrandall angrily, but Sara interrupted him to suggest that they talk it over in the tea-house. She would ring for tea.

"If you will excuse me, Mrs. Wrandall, I think I will be off," said Booth.

"Please stay, Mr. Booth," she urged. "I would like to have you here."

She fell behind with Hetty. The girl's eyes were glassy.

"Don't be alarmed," she whispered.

Booth pressed the button for her. "Thank you. You will be surprised, Mr. Wrandall, to hear that the new clew leads to a member of your own family."

Mr. Wrandall was in the act of sitting down. At her words he dropped. His eyes bulged.

"Good God!"

"It appears that Mr. Smith suspects—ME!" said she coolly.

Her father-in-law's lips moved, but no sound issued. His face was livid.

"The stupid fool!" hissed the irate Mr. Carroll.

There was deathly silence for a moment following this outburst. Every face was pale. In Hetty's there was an expression of utter horror. Her lips too were moving.

"He has, it seems, put one thing and another together, as if it were a picture puzzle," went on Sara. "His visit to Mr. Carroll this morning was for the purpose of ascertaining how much it would be worth to me if he dropped the case—NOW."

"The infernal blackmailer!" gasped Mr. Wrandall, finding his voice. "I will have him kicked off the place if he comes to me with—My dear, my dear! You cannot mean what you say."

He was in a shocking state of bewilderment.

"I'd advise you to call off your infernal blackmailer, Mr. Redmond Wrandall," snarled Mr. Carroll, pacing back and forth.

"My dear sir," stammered the other, "I—I—do you mean to imply that I know anything about this infamous business?"

"He is your dog, not ours," declared the lawyer, pacing the brick floor.

"Peace, gentlemen," admonished Sara. "Let us discuss it calmly."

"Calmly?" gasped Mr. Wrandall.

"Calmly!" snapped the lawyer.

"At least deliberately. It appears, Mr. Wrandall, that Smith has been working on the theory all along that it was I who went to the inn with Challis. You recall the description given of the woman? She was of my size and figure, they said at the time. Well, he has—"

"It is infamous!" shouted Mr. Wrandall, springing to his feet. "He shall hear from me to-night. I shall have him lodged in jail before—"

"You will do nothing of the sort," interrupted Sara firmly. "I think you will do well to hear his side of the story. And remember, sir, that it would be very difficult for me to establish an alibi."

"Bless me!" groaned the old man. Then his eyes brightened. "But Miss Castleton can prove that for you, my dear. Don't forget Miss Castleton."

"Miss Castleton did not come to me, you should remember, until after the—the trouble. It occurred the second night after my arrival from Europe. Mr. Smith has discovered that I was not in my rooms at the hotel that night."

"You were not?" fell from Mr. Wrandall's lips. "Where were you?"

"I spent the night in our apartment—alone." She shivered as with a chill as she uttered these words.

"What!"

"Leslie met me at the dock. He said that Challis had gone away from town for a day or two. The next day I telephoned to the garage and asked them to send the big car to me as I wanted to make some calls. They said that Mr. Wrandall had discharged the chauffeur a week or two before and had been using my little French runabout for a few days, driving it himself. I then instructed them to send the runabout around with one of their own drivers. You can imagine my surprise when I was told that Mr. Wrandall had taken the car out that morning and had not returned with it."

"I see," said Mr. Wrandall, beads of perspiration standing on his forehead.

"He had not left town. I will not try to describe my feelings. Late in the afternoon, I called them up again. He had not returned. It was then that I thought of going to the apartment, which had been closed all winter. Watson and his wife were to go in the next day by my instructions. Challis had been living at a club, I believe. Somehow, I had the feeling that during the night my husband would come to the apartment—perhaps not alone. You understand. I went there and waited all night. That is the story. Of course, it is known that I did not spend the night at the hotel. Mr. Smith evidently has learned as much. It is on this circumstance that he bases his belief."

Booth was leaning forward, breathless with interest.

"May I enquire, Mr. Carroll, how the clever Mr. Smith accounts for the secrecy observed by Mr. Wrandall and his companion, if, as he proclaims, you were the woman? Is it probable that husband and wife would have been so mysterious?"

Mr. Carroll answered. "He is rather ingenious as to that, Mr. Booth. You must understand that he does not specifically charge my cli—Mrs. Wrandall with the murder of her husband. He merely arranges his theories so that they may be applied to her with a reasonable degree of assurance. He only goes this far in his deductions: If, as he has gleaned, Challis Wrandall was engaged in an illicit—er—we'll say distraction—with some one unknown to Sara his wife, what could be more spectacular than her discovery of the fact and the subsequently inspired decision to lay a trap for him? Of course, it is perfect nonsense, but it is the way he goes about it. It has been established beyond a doubt that Wrandall met the woman at a station four miles down the line from Burton's Inn. She came out on one of the local trains, got off at this station as prearranged, and found him waiting for her. Two men, you will recall, testified to that effect at the inquest sixteen months ago. She was heavily veiled. She got in the motor and drove off with him. This was at half past eight o'clock in the evening. Smith makes this astounding guess; the woman instead of being the person expected, was in reality his wife, who had by some means intercepted a letter. Our speculative friend Smith is not prepared to suggest an arrest on these flimsy claims, but he believes it to be worth Mrs. Wrandall's while to have the case permanently closed, rather than allow these nasty conclusions to get abroad. They would spread like wildfire. Do you see what I mean?"

"It is abominable!" cried Hetty, standing before them with flashing eyes. "I KNOW she did not—"

"Hetty, my dear!" cried Sara sharply.

The girl looked at her for a moment in a frenzied way, and then turned aside, biting her lips to keep back the actual confession that had rushed up to them.

"It is blackmail," repeated Mr. Wrandall miserably.

"In the most diabolical form," augmented Carroll. "The worst of it is, Wrandall, we can't stop his tongue unless we fairly choke him with greenbacks. All he has to do is to give the confounded yellow journals an inkling of his suspicions, and the job is done. It seems to be pretty well understood that the crime was not committed by a person in the ordinary walks of life, but by one who is secure in the protection of mighty influences. There are those who believe that his companion was one of the well-known and prominent young matrons in the city, many of whom were at one time or another interested in him in a manner not at all complimentary. Smith suggests—mind you, he merely suggests—that the person who was to have met Wrandall in the country that night was so highly connected that she does not dare reveal herself, although absolutely innocent of the crime. Or, it is possible on the other hand, he says, that she may consider herself extremely lucky in failing to keep her appointment and thereby alluring him to take up with another, after she had written the letter breaking off the engagement,—said letter not having been received by him because it had fallen into the hands of his wife. Do you see? It is ingenious, isn't it?"

"What is to be done?" groaned Mr. Wrandall, in a state of collapse. He was sitting limply back in the chair, crumpled to the chin.

"The sanest thing, I'd suggest," said Booth sarcastically, "is the capture of the actual perpetrator of the deed."

"But, confound them," growled Carroll, "they say they can't."

"I shall withdraw my offer of reward," proclaimed the unhappy father, struggling to his feet. "I never dreamed it could come to such a pass as this. You DO believe me, don't you, Sara, my child—my daughter? God hear me, I never—"

"Oh," said she cuttingly, "you, at least, are innocent, Mr. Wrandall."

He looked at her rather sharply.

"The confounded fellow is coming to see me to-morrow," he went on after a moment of indecision. "I shall be obliged to telephone to the city for my attorney to come out also. I don't believe in taking chances with these scoundrels. They—"

"May I enquire, sir, why you entrusted the matter to a third rate detective agency when there are such reputable concerns as the Pinkertons or—" began Mr. Carroll bitingly.

Mr. Wrandall held up his hand deprecatingly.

"We had an idea that an unheard of agency might accomplish more than one of the famous organisations."

"Well, you see what has come of it," growled the other.

"I was opposed to the reward, sir," declared Mr. Wrandall with some heat. "Not that I was content to give up the search, but because I felt sure that the guilty person would eventually reveal herself. They always do, sir. It is the fundamental principle of criminology. Soon or late they falter. My son Leslie is of a like opinion. He has declared all along that the mystery will be cleared up if we are quiescent. A guilty conscience takes its own way to relieve itself. If you keep prodding it with sharp sticks you encourage fear, and stealth, and all that sort of thing, without really getting anywhere in the end. Give a murderer a free rope and he'll hang himself, is my belief. Threaten him with that self-same rope, and he'll pay more attention to dread than to conscience, and your ends are defeated."

Sara was inwardly nervous. She stole a glance at the white, emotionless face of the girl across the table, and was filled with apprehension.

"Can you be sure, Mr. Wrandall," she began earnestly, "that justice isn't the antidote for the poisonous thing we call a conscience? Suppose this woman to have been fully justified in doing what she did, does it follow that conscience can force her to admit, even to herself, that she is morally guilty of a crime against man? I doubt it, sir."

She was prepared for a subtle change in Hetty's countenance and was not surprised to see the light of hope steal back into her eyes.

"Fully justified?" murmured the old gentleman painfully.

"Perhaps we would better not go into that question too intimately," suggested Mr. Carroll.

"My son Leslie has peculiar views along the very line—" began Mr. Wrandall, in great distress of mind. He fell into a reflective mood and did not finish the sentence.

"I shall see this man Smith," announced Sara calmly.

Her father-in-law stood over her, his face working. "My dear," he said, "I promise you this absurd business shall go no farther. Don't let it trouble you in the least. I will attend to Smith. If there is no other way to check his vile insinuations, I will pay his price. You are not to be submitted to these dreadful—"

She interrupted him. "You will do nothing of the kind, Mr. Wrandall," she said levelly. "Do you want to convince him that I AM guilty?"

"God in heaven, no!"

"Then why pay him the reward you have offered for the person who is guilty?"

"It is an entirely different propo—"

"It amounts to the same thing, sir. He tells you he has discovered the woman you want and you fulfil your part of the bargain by paying him for his services. That closes the transaction, so far as he is concerned. He goes his way fully convinced that he has put his hands on the criminal, and then proceeds to wash them in private instead of in public. No. Let me see this man. I insist."

"He will be at my place to-morrow at eleven," said Wrandall resignedly. "I wish Leslie were here. He is so level-headed."

Sara laid her hand on his arm. He looked up and found her regarding him rather fixedly.

"It would be just as well as to keep this from Mrs. Wrandall and Vivian," she said meaningly.

"You are right, Sara. It would distress them beyond words."

She smiled faintly. "May I enquire whether Mr. Smith is to report to you or to Mrs. Wrandall?"

He flushed. "My wife—er—made the arrangements with him, Sara," he said, but added quickly: "With my sanction, of course. He reports to me. As a matter of fact, now that I think of it, he advised me to say nothing to my wife until he had talked with me."

"Inasmuch as he has already talked it over with me, through counsel, I don't see any reason why we should betray his gentle confidence, do you?"

"I—I suppose not," said he uncomfortably.

"Then, bring him here at eleven, Mr. Wrandall," said she serenely. "He has already paved the way. I imagine he expects to find me at home. Put the things here, Watson."

Watson had appeared with the tray. It being a very hot day, he did not bring tea.



CHAPTER XIII

MR. WRANDALL PERJURES HIMSELF



Smith arrived at eleven, somewhat after the fashion of the Hawkshaws of "yellow back" fame, who, if our memory serves us right, were so punctual that their appearance anywhere was described as being in the "nick o' time," only in this instance he was expected and did not "drop from the sky," as the saying goes.

Mr. Wrandall met him at the station and escorted him in a roundabout way to Southlook, carefully avoiding the main village thoroughfare and High street, where the fashionable colony was intrenched. Mr. Smith, being an experienced detective, was not surprised to find (after the introduction), that Mr. Wrandall's attorney had been a fellow-passenger from town. If he was impressed, he did not once betray the fact during the four mile spin to Sara's. On the contrary, he seemed to be entirely absorbed in the scenery.

Mr. Wrandall had said, without shaking hands: "We will repair at once to Mrs. Challis Wrandall's house, Mr. Smith. She is expecting you. I have informed her of your mission."

"I think we'd better discuss the matter between ourselves, Mr. Wrandall, before putting it up to—"

"There is nothing in connection with this unhappy affair, sir, that cannot be discussed first-hand with her," said his employer stiffly.

"Just as you like, sir," said Smith indifferently. "I have talked it over with old man Carroll. He understands."

"I am quite sure he does, Mr. Smith," said the other, with emphasis. Mr. Smith successfully hid a smile.

He took his seat beside the chauffeur.

"I am surprised," he observed to the driver, as a "feeler," "that you haven't changed bodies."

"Mr. Wrandall ordered the limousine, sir," said the chauffeur.

"Oh, I see. Keeps it on hand for rainy days, I suppose."

"It's Mrs. Wrandall's idea," explained the man. "Women are fussy about their hair. We always have a limousine handy."

"It is a handy thing to have about," said Mr. Smith drily, as he looked out of the corner of his eye and remarked the two men behind him. They were in very close conversation.

"The boss usually takes the other car. He likes the wind in his face, he says. I don't know why he ordered the limousine to-day."

"Probably there's something in the wind to-day he doesn't like," remarked Smith, after which he devoted himself assiduously to the road ahead, not being a practiced motorist.

As they were ascending the steps in Sara's exotic garden, Smith ventured a somewhat sinister remark.

"These steps are not good for a man with a weak heart, Mr. Wrandall. I hope yours is sound."

"Quite, Mr. Smith. Have no fear," said Mr. Wrandall, with an acute sense of divination. "You will also find it to be in the right place."

"Umph," said Mr. Smith.

Sara did not keep them waiting long in the morning room. She came in soon after they were announced, followed by Mr. Carroll, who had spent the night at Southlook. Hetty Castleton was not in evidence.

She motioned them to seats after Mr. Wrandall had ceremoniously introduced his lawyer, and as unceremoniously neglected to do as much for Smith.

"This is Mr. Smith, I presume," said she, with a slight uplifting of her eyebrows. She took a chair facing the detective.

"Yes, my dear," said her father-in-law. "Joseph Smith."

"Benjamin, if you please," corrected Mr. Smith.

"I regret to state that my memory for names does not go back to the Old Testament," said Wrandall, with a frosty smile.

"There are no Smiths in the Old Testament," said the detective grimly.

"I understand, Mr. Smith, that you are prepared to charge me with the murder of my husband."

She said it very quietly, very levelly. Smith was a bit staggered.

"Well, I—er—hardly that, Mrs. Wrandall," he said, disconcerted.

"Will you be good enough to come to the point at once?"

"My report in this matter, madam, is to be made to Mr. Wrandall here, as I understand it," said the detective, his jaw stiffening. "We don't, as a rule, report our findings to—well, to the person we suspect. It isn't what you'd call regular. Mr, Wrandall has employed me to make the investigation. He can hardly expect me to reveal my findings to you."

"My dear Sara—" began Mr. Wrandall.

"As this is a rather intimate conference, Mr. Smith," interrupted Sara, with a gracious smile for her father-in-law, "I fancy we have nothing to gain, one way or another, by recriminations. You have already consulted Mr. Carroll, and I have talked it over with Mr. Wrandall. That was to have been expected, I believe. As I understand the situation, you are somewhat curious to know just how much it is worth to me to have the matter dropped."

Smith eyed her steadily.

"That is the case, precisely," he said briefly.

"Then you are not really interested in having the guilty person brought to justice?"

"I am not an officer of the law, madam. I am a private individual, working for private ends. It is for Mr. Wrandall to say whether my discoveries shall be related in court. I respectfully submit that I am acting within my rights. My deductions have been formed. That is as far as I can go without his authority. He has offered a reward, and he has gone farther than that by engaging us to devote our time, brains and energies to the case. I am in this position at present: our firm cannot accept the reward he has offered without deliberately declaring to the world that we can put our hand on the slayer of his son. As I cannot produce the actual proof that we have found that person, I am in honour compelled to submit our findings so far as they have gone, and then either to withdraw from the matter or carry it on to the end, as he may elect. Our time is worth something, madam. We have made a careful and exhaustive investigation. We have come to the point where we can go no farther without more or less publicly associating you with our theories. I spoke to Mr. Carroll yesterday, it is true, and I am here to-day to lay my facts before Mr. Wrandall—and his attorney, I see. Mr. Carroll chose to call me a blackmailer. He may be correct in his legal way of looking at it. But he is wrong in assuming that MY motives are criminal. I submit that they are fair, open and above board."

There was a moment's silence following this astonishingly succinct summing up of his position. The three men had not taken their eyes from his shrewd, frank face during that clever speech. They had nothing to say. It had been agreed among them that Sara was to do the talking. They were to do the watching.

"You put the case very fairly, Mr. Smith," said she seriously. "I think your position is clear enough, assuming of course that you have any real evidence to support your theories, whatever they may be. I am perfectly free to say that you interest me."

"Interest you?" he said, in some exasperation. He had expected her to fly into a passion. "Don't you take me seriously, madam?"

"As far as you have gone, yes."

Mr. Wrandall could hold in no longer. He was most uncomfortable.

"See here, Smith, out with it. Let us have your story. My daughter-in-law is not in the least alarmed. You've been on the wrong track, of course. But that isn't the point. What we want now is to find out just where we stand."

"You put it in a rather compromising way, Mr. Wrandall. The pronoun 'we' is somewhat general, if you will permit me to say so. Do you expect me to discuss my findings in the presence of Mrs. Wrandall and her counsel?"

"Certainly, sir, certainly. You need have no hesitancy on that score. I dare say you came here knowing that what you were to say would go no further than these four walls."

"Would you say that, sir, if I were to submit proof that would make it look so black for Mrs. Wrandall that you couldn't very well doubt her complicity in the crime, even though you saw fit to let it go no further than these four walls?"

Mr. Wrandall hesitated. A heavy frown appeared between his eyes; his fingers worked nervously on the arm of the chair.

"I may say to you, Mr. Smith, that if you produce conclusive proof I shall do my duty as a law-respecting citizen. I would not hesitate on that score."

Sara looked at him through half-closed lids. His jaws were firmly set.

Smith seemed to be reflecting. He did not speak for a long interval.

"In the first place, it struck me as odd that the man's wife did not take more interest in the search that was made immediately after the kill—after the tragedy. Not only that, but it is of record that she deliberately informed the police that she didn't care whether they caught the guilty party or not. Isn't that true?"

The question was directed to no one in particular.

It was Sara who answered.

"Quite true, Mr. Smith. And if it will interest you in the least, I repeat that I don't care even now."

"You were asked if you would offer a reward in addition to the small one announced by the authorities. Why didn't you offer a reward?"

"Because I did not care to make it an object for well-meaning detectives to pry into the affairs of indiscreet members of society," she said.

"I see," said he reflectively. "May I be so bold as to ask why you don't want to have the guilty punished?"

She looked at Mr. Wrandall before offering a reply to this direct question.

"I can't answer that question without publicly wounding Mr. Wrandall."

"We understand each other, Sara," said the old man painfully. "I think you would better answer his question."

"Because my husband courted the fate that befell him, Mr. Smith. That is my reply. While I do not know what actually transpired at the inn, I am reasonably certain that my husband's life was taken by some one who had suffered at his hands. I can say no more."

"The eye for an eye principle, eh?" There was deep sarcasm in the way he said it. As she did not respond to the challenge, he abruptly changed tactics. "Where were you on the night of the murder, Mrs. Wrandall?"

She smiled. "I thought you knew, Mr. Smith."

"I have reason to believe that you were at Burton's Inn," he said bluntly.

"But you wouldn't be at all sure about it if I said I wasn't there, would you, Mr. Smith?"

"I don't quite get you, Mrs. Wrandall."

"I mean to say, if I made it worth your while to change your opinion," she said flatly.

He cleared his throat. "You couldn't change my opinion, so there's an end to that. You could stop me right where I am, if that's what you mean. I'm perfectly frank about it, gentlemen. You needn't look as if you'd like to kill me. I'm not anxious to go on with the investigation. I don't know enough up to date to be sure of a conviction, but I guess I could get the proof if it is to be found. This is a family affair, I take it. Mr. Wrandall here doesn't want to—"

Mr. Wrandall struck the arm of his chair a violent blow with his clenched fist.

"You have no authority, sir, to make such a statement!" he exclaimed. "I want it distinctly understood that I would give half of what I possess to have the slayer of my son brought to justice."

"But you don't want this thing to go any further so far as Mrs. Challis Wrandall is concerned," said Smith coolly.

"Of course not, you miserable scoundrel!" cried the other in a rage. "She's no more guilty than I am."

"Don't call names, Mr. Wrandall," said Smith, a steely glitter in his eyes. "I am prepared to lay before you certain facts that I have unravelled, but I am not willing to give them to Mrs. Wrandall."

"My daughter-in-law spent the night at her own apartment, waiting for my son," said Wrandall, regaining control of himself. "That is positively known to me, sir. Positively!"

"How can you be sure of that, Mr. Wrandall?" asked Smith sharply.

The gaunt old face, suddenly very much older than it had been before, took on a stern, defiant expression.

"I spoke with her over the telephone at half past nine o'clock that night," said he steadily.

Smith was not the only one to be surprised by this startling declaration. Sara Wrandall's eyes widened ever so slightly, and one might have detected a sharp catch in her breath.

"She called you up?" asked Smith, after a moment to collect his wits.

Mr. Wrandall was not to be trapped. He had made up his mind to lie for Sara in this hour of need, and he had considered well his methods.

"No. I called up the apartment."

"How did you know she was at her apartment?"

"I did not know it. I called up to speak with my son. She answered the call, Mr. Smith."

He arose from the chair. Smith also came slowly to his feet, the look of astonishment still on his face.

"And now, sir," went on the old man, levelling a bony finger at him, "I think we can dispense with your services. I will give you credit for one thing: you are plain-spoken and above board. You want money and you don't beat about the bush. If you will instruct your office to send to me a bill for services, I will pay it. I engaged you, and I am ready to pay for my stupidity. My car will take you back to the station."

Smith picked up his hat and fumbled with it for a moment, plainly dismayed.

"If I have been on the wrong lead, Mr. Wrandall, I am willing to drop it and start all over again. I suppose your reward still stands. I am sure we can—"

"It does not stand, sir. I shall withdraw it this very day. God knows if I had thought it would lead us to this pass, it should never have been offered. Now, go, sir."

Smith held his ground doggedly. "There are a few points I'd like to—"

"No!"

"For the sake of justice and—"

Sara interrupted the man. She had crossed to Mr. Wrandall's side, a queer light in her eyes. Her hand fell upon his trembling old arm and he felt a thrill pass from her warm, strong fingers into the very core of his body.

"Mr. Smith, will you give me an off-hand estimate of what your services amount to in dollars and cents up to date?"

"You don't owe me anything, Mrs. Wrandall," said Smith, flushing a dull red.

"You came here to give me a chance, Mr. Smith, feeling that I was actually implicated. You had a price fixed in your mind. You still have your doubts, in spite of what Mr. Wrandall says. It occurred to you that it would be worth considerable to me if the investigation went no farther. You realised that you could not have brought this crime home to me, because you could not have found REAL, satisfying evidence. But you could have gone to the newspapers with your suspicions, and you could have made one-half the world believe that an innocent person was guilty of a foul crime. The world loves its sensations. It would have gloated over the little you could have given it, and it would have damned me unheard. I owe you something for sparing me a fate so wretched as that. Your price: What is it?"

"Sara!" cried Mr. Wrandall, aghast.

"My dear Mrs. Wrandall," cried Carroll, blinking his eyes, "you are not thinking of—"

"I am thinking of paying Mr. Smith his price," said Sara calmly.

"Why, damn it all," roared Carroll, "you countenance his ridiculous assertions—"

"No; I do nothing of the sort, Mr. Carroll, and Mr. Smith knows it quite as well as you do. He still has it in his power to set the tongues to wagging. We can't get around that, gentlemen. I want to pay him to drop the case entirely. The reward has been withdrawn. Will it satisfy your cupidity, Mr. Smith, if I agree to pay to you a like amount?"

"Good Lord!" gasped Smith, staggered.

"I cannot permit—" began Mr. Wrandall.

She looked him squarely in the eye and the words died on his lips.

"I prefer to have it my way," she said. "I will not accept favours from Mr. Smith—nor any other man." Wrandall alone caught the significance of the last four words. She would not accept the favour of a lie from him! And yet she would not humiliate by denying him in the presence of others. "Mr. Carroll will attend to this matter for me, Mr. Smith, if you will call at his office at your convenience. I shall make but a single stipulation in addition to the one involved: you are to drop the case altogether. Mr. Wrandall has already dismissed you. You are under no further obligations to him or his family. I respectfully submit to all of you, gentlemen, that when the investigations go so far astray as they have gone in this instance, it isn't safe to let them continue with the possible chance of proving unwholesome to other innocent persons, toward whom, in some justice, attention might be drawn. The young woman now in the far West is a sickening example. I refer to the Ashtley girl. If, by any chance, the right person should be taken, I will do my part, Mr. Wrandall, with the same purpose if not the same spirit that actuates you, but I am opposed to baring skeletons to gratify the morbid curiosity of a public that despises all of us because, unhappily, we are what we are. I trust I make myself plain to you. I loved my husband. I have no desire to know the names of women who were his—we will say—who were in love with him."

Mr. Wrandall bowed his head and said not a word. His attorney, who had been a silent listener from the beginning, spoke for the first time.

"If Mr. Smith will call at my office to-morrow, I will attend to the closing of this matter to his entire satisfaction. Mr. Wrandall has already authorised me to settle in full for his time and—patience."

"I don't like to take money in this way—"

"We won't discuss ethics, Mr. Smith."

"Just as you like, then. I'm only too happy to be off the job. Good morning, madam. Good morning, gentlemen."

He stalked from the room. Watson was waiting in the hall.

"This way," he said, indicating the big front door.

Smith grinned sheepishly. "'Gad, they don't even think I can find a front door," he said.

Redmond Wrandall turned to the two men after he heard the door of his automobile slam in the porte-cochere.

"Gentlemen, I believe it is unnecessary to announce to you that I did not speak over the telephone with my daughter-in-law on that wretched night," he said slowly.

They nodded their heads.

"I am not a good liar. Do you think the fellow believed me?"

"No," said Sara instantly. "He is accustomed to better lying than you can supply. But it doesn't in the least matter. He knows, however, that you spoke the truth when you said I was in my apartment, even though you are not sure of it yourself, Mr. Wrandall. I will not presume to thank you for what you did, but I shall never forget it, sir."

He regarded her rather austerely for a moment. "I am glad you do not thank me, Sara," he said. "You are not to feel that you are under the slightest obligation to me."

"I regret that you felt it necessary to perjure yourself," she said levelly, and then broke into a soft little laugh as she laid her hand on his arm once more. "Come! Let us have a semi-public view of Hetty's portrait."

He looked up alertly at the mention of the girl's name.

"By the way, where is Miss Castleton?" he asked, drawing a long breath as if the air had suddenly become wholesome.

"She is back yonder in the living-room, having her last sitting to Brandon Booth. Just a few finishing touches, that's all. I hear them laughing. The day's work is done."

She led the way down the long hall, followed by the old gentlemen, who came three abreast, hoary retainers at the heels of youth.



CHAPTER XIV

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MILL



Later on Sara, in sober reflection, endorsed what had appeared at the time to be a whimsical, quixotic proceeding on her part. She brought herself completely to the point where she could view her action with complacency. At first, there was an irritating, nagging fear that Mr. Wrandall had been genuinely soul-sacrificing in his effort to defend her; that his decisive falsehood was a sincere declaration of loyalty to her and not the transparent outburst of one actuated by a sort of fanatical selfishness, in that he dreaded the further dragging in the dust of the name of Wrandall, and all that in spite of his positive belief that she was being wrongly, unfairly attacked. She knew that her father-in-law had no doubt in his mind that she could successfully combat any charge Smith might bring against her; that her innocence would prevail even in the opinion of the scheming detective. But behind all this was the Wrandall conclusion that a skin was to be saved, and that skin the one which covered the Wrandall pride.

His lie was not glorifying. She even consented that it might be the first deliberate falsehood this honourable, discriminating gentleman had told in all his life. At the moment, he may have been actuated by a motive that deceived him, but even unknown to him the Wrandall self-interest was at work. He was not lying for her, but for the Wrandalls! And she would have to remain his debtor all her life because of that amiable falsehood!

She intuitively felt the force of that secret motive almost the instant it found expression, and she resented it even as she applauded it in the first wave of inward enthusiasm. She might have marked it down to his credit, and loved him a little for it, had not his rather distorted integrity impelled him to confess his transgression to the lawyers, whereas it was perfectly plain that they appreciated his distortion of the truth without having it explained to them in so many words. That virtuous little speech of his was all-illuminating; it let in a great light and laid bare the weakness that was too strong for him.

Her abrupt change of front, her suddenly formed resolve to pay the man his price, was the result of a natural opposition to the elder Wrandall. She acted hastily, even ruthlessly, in direct contradiction to her original intentions, but she now felt that she had acted wisely. There could be no doubt in the mind of the keen-witted Smith that Mr. Wrandall had lied; his lips therefore were sealed, not by the declaration, but by her own surprising offer to remunerate.

When she told Hetty what she had done, the girl, who had been tortured by doubts and misgivings, threw herself into her arms and sobbed out her gratitude.

"I could die for you, Sara. I could die a thousand deaths," she cried.

"Oh, I dare say Smith is quite delighted," said Sara carelessly. "He had come up against a brick wall, don't you see. He could go no further. There was but one thing for him to do and he did it. He had no case, but he felt that he ought to be paid just the same. Mr. Wrandall would never have paid him, he was sure of that. His game failed. He thinks better of me now than he ever did before, and I have made a friend of him, strange as it may appear."

"Oh, I hope so."

Sara stroked her cheek gently. "Don't be afraid, Hetty. We are quite safe."

Hetty secretly gloated over that little pronoun 'we.' It spelt security.

"And wasn't it splendid of Mr. Wrandall to say what he did?" she mused, lying back among the cushions with a sigh of relaxation.

Sara did not at once reply. She smiled rather oddly.

"It was," she said succinctly. "I am sure Leslie will go into raptures over his father's decline and fall."

"Must he be told?" in some dismay.

"Certainly. Every son should know his own father," she explained, with a quiet laugh.

The next day but one was overcast. On cloudy, bleak days Hetty Castleton always felt depressed. Shadowless days, when the sun was obscured, filled her with a curious sense of apprehension, as if when the sun came out again he would not find the world as he had left it. She did not mope; it was not in her nature. She was more than ever mentally alert on such days, for the very reason that the world seemed to have lapsed into a state of indifference, with the sun nowhere to be seen. There was a queer sensation of dread in knowing that that great ball of fire was somewhere in the vault above her and yet unlocated in the sinister pall that spread over the skies. Her fancy ofttimes pictured him sailing in the west when he should be in the east, dodging back and forth in impish abandon behind the screen, and she wondered at such times if he would be where he belonged when the clouds lifted.

Leslie was to return from the wilds on the following day. Early in the morning Booth had telephoned to enquire if she did not want to go for a long walk with him before luncheon. The portrait was finished, but he could not afford to miss the morning hour with her. He said as much to her in pressing his invitation.

"To-morrow Leslie will be here and I shan't see as much of you as I'd like," he explained, rather wistfully. "Three is a crowd, you know. I've got so used to having you all to myself, it's hard to break off suddenly."

"I will be ready at eleven," she said, and was instantly surprised to find that her voice rang with new life, new interest. The greyness seemed to lift from the view that stretched beyond the window; she even looked for the sun in her eagerness.

It was then that she knew why the world had been bleaker than usual, even in its cloak of grey.

A little before eleven she set out briskly to intercept him at the gates. Unknown to her, Sara sat in her window, and viewed her departure with gloomy eyes. The world also was grey for her.

They came upon each other unexpectedly at a sharp turn in the avenue. Hetty coloured with a sudden rush of confusion, and had all she could do to meet his eager, happy eyes as he stood over her and proclaimed his pleasure in jerky, awkward sentences. Then they walked on together, a strange shyness attending them. She experienced the faintness of breath that comes when the heart is filled with pleasant alarms. As for Booth, his blood sang. He thrilled with the joy of being near her, of the feel of her all about him, of the delicious feminine appeal that made her so wonderful to him. He wanted to crush her in his arms, to keep her there for ever, to exert all of his brute physical strength so that she might never again be herself but a part of him.

They uttered commonplaces. The spell was on them. It would lift, but for the moment they were powerless to struggle against it. At length he saw the colour fade from her cheeks; her eyes were able to meet his without the look in them that all men love. Then he seemed to get his feet on the ground again, and a strange, ineffably sweet sense of calm took possession of him.

"I must paint you all over again," he said, suddenly breaking in on one of her remarks. "Just as you are to-day,—an outdoor girl, a glorious outdoor girl in—"

"In muddy boots," she laughed, drawing her skirt away to reveal a shapely foot in an American walking shoe.

He smiled and gave voice to a new thought. "By Jove, how much better looking our American shoes are than the kind they wear in London!"

"Sara insists on American shoes, so long as I am with her. I don't think our boots are so villainous, do you?"

"Just the same, I'm going to paint you again, boots and all. You—"

"Oh, how tired you will become of me!"

"Try me!"

"Besides, you are to do Sara at once. She has consented to sit to you. She will be wonderful, Mr. Booth, oh, how wonderful!"

There was no mistaking the sincerity of this rapt opinion.

"Stunning," was his brief comment. "By the way, I've hesitated about asking how she and Mr. Wrandall came out with the detective chap."

Her face clouded. "It was so perfectly ridiculous, Mr. Booth. The man is satisfied that he was wrong. The matter is ended."

"Pure blackmail, I'd call it. I hope it isn't ended so far as she is concerned. I'd have him in jail so quick his—"

"She's tender-hearted, and sensitive. No real harm has been done. She refuses to prosecute him."

"You can't mean it."

"If you knew her as I do, you would understand."

"But her lawyer, what had he to say about it? And Mr. Wrandall? I should have thought they—"

"I believe they quite approve of what she has done. Nothing will come of it."

He walked on in silence for a couple of rods. "I have a feeling they will never know who killed Challis Wrandall," he said. "It is a mystery that can't be solved by deduction or theory, and there is nothing else for them to work on, as I understand the case. The earth seems to have been generous enough to swallow her completely. She's safe unless she chooses to confess, and that isn't likely. To be perfectly frank with you, Miss Castleton, I rather hope they never get her. He was something of a beast, you know."

She was looking straight ahead. "You used the word generous, Mr. Booth. Do you mean that she deserves pity?"

"Without knowing all the circumstances, I would say yes. I've had the feeling that she was more sinned against than sinning."

"Would you believe that she acted in self-defence?"

"It is quite possible."

"Then, will you explain why she does not give herself up to the authorities and assert her innocence? There is no proof to the contrary." She spoke hurriedly, with an eagerness which he mistook for doubt.

"For one reason, she may be a good woman who was indiscreet. She may have some one else to think of besides herself. A second reason: she may lack moral courage."

"Moral courage!"

"It is one thing to claim self-defence and another thing to get people to believe in it. I suppose you know what Leslie thinks about it?"

"He has not discussed it with me."

"He believes his brother deserved what he got."

"Oh!"

"For that reason he has not taken an active part in hounding her down."

She was silent for a long time, so long indeed that he turned to look at her.

"A thoroughly decent, fair-minded chap is Leslie Wrandall," he pronounced, for want of something better to say. "Still, I'm bound to say, I'm sorry he is coming home to-morrow."

The red crept into her cheeks again.

"I thought you were such pals," she said nervously.

"I expect to be his best man if he ever marries," said he, whacking a stone at the road-side with his walking stick. Then he looked up at her furtively and added, with a quizzical smile: "Unless something happens."

"What COULD happen?"

"He MIGHT marry the girl I'm in love with, and, in that case, I'd have to be excused."

"Where shall we walk to this morning?" she asked abruptly. He had drawn closer to her in the roadway. "Is it too far to the old stone mill? That's where I first saw you, if you remember."

"Yes, let us go there," she said, but her heart sank. She knew what was coming. Perhaps it were best to have it over with; to put it away with the things that were to always be her lost treasures. It would mean the end of their companionship, the end of a love dream. She would have to lie to him: to tell him she did not love him.

One would go many a fruitless day in quest of a more attractive pair than they as they strode swiftly down the shady road. They lagged not, for they were strong and healthy, and walking was a joy to them, not an exercise. She kept pace beside him, with her free stride; half a head shorter than he, she did not demand it of him that he should moderate his stride to suit hers. He was tall and long-limbed, but not camel-like in his manner of walking, as so many tall men are apt to be. His eyes were bright with the excitement that predicted a no uncertain encounter, although he had no definite purpose in mind. There was something singularly wistful, unfathomable, in her velvety blue eyes that gave him hope, he knew not why.

Coming to the jog in the broad macadam, they were striking off into the narrow road that led to the quaint old mill, long since abandoned in the forest glade beyond, when their attention was drawn to a motor-car, which was slowing down for the turn into Sara's domain. A cloud of dust swam in the air far behind the machine.

A bare-headed man on the seat beside the driver, waved his hand to them, and two women in the tonneau bowed gravely. Both Hetty and Booth flushed uncomfortably, and hesitated in their progress up the forest road.

The man was Leslie Wrandall. His mother and sister were in the back seat of the touring car.

"Why—why, it was Leslie," cried Booth, looking over his shoulder at the rapidly receding car. "Shall we turn back, Miss Castleton?"

"No," she cried instantly, with something like impatience in her voice. "And spoil our walk?" she added in the next breath, adding a nervous little laugh.

"It seems rather—" he began dubiously.

"Oh, let us have our day," she cried sharply, and led the way into the by-road.

They came, in the course of a quarter-of-an-hour, to the bridge over the mill-race. Beyond, in the mossy shades, stood a dilapidated, centurion structure known as Rangely's Mill, a landmark with a history that included incidents of the revolutionary war, when eager patriots held secret meetings inside its walls and plotted under the very noses of Tory adherents to the crown.

Pausing for a few minutes on the bridge, they leaned on the rail and looked down into the clear, mirror-like water of the race. Their own eyes looked up at them; they smiled into their own faces. And a fleecy white cloud passed over the glittering stream and swept through their faces, off to the bank, and was gone for ever.

Suddenly he looked up from the water and fixed his eyes on her face. He had seen her clear blue eyes fill with tears as he gazed into them from the rail above.

"Oh, my dear!" he cried. "What is it?"

She put her handkerchief to her eyes as she quickly turned away. In another instant, she was smiling up at him, a soft, pleading little smile that went straight to his heart.

"Shall we start back?" she asked, a quaver in her voice.

"No," he exclaimed. "I've got to go on with it now, Hetty. I didn't intend to, but—come, let us go up and sit on that familiar old log in the shade of the mill. You must, dear!"

She suffered him to lead her up the steep bank beyond and through the rocks and rotten timbers to the great beam that protruded from the shattered foundations of the mill. The rickety old wheel, weather-beaten and sad, rose above them and threatened to topple over if they so much as touched its flimsy supports.

He did not release her hand after drawing her up beside him.

"You must know that I love you," he said simply.

She made no response. Her hand lay limp in his. She was staring straight before her.

"You DO know it, don't you?" he went on.

"I—God knows I don't want you to love me. I never meant that you should—" she was saying, as if to herself.

"I suppose it's hopeless," he said dumbly, as her voice trailed off in a whisper.

"Yes, it is utterly hopeless," she said, and she was white to the lips.

"I—I shan't say anything more," said he. "Of course, I understand how it is. There's some one else. Only I want you to know that I love you with all my soul, Hetty. I—I don't see how I'm going to get on without you. But I—I won't distress you, dear."

"There isn't any one else, Brandon," she said in a very low voice. Her fingers tightened on his in a sort of desperation. "I know what you are thinking. It isn't Leslie. It never can be Leslie."

"Then,—then—" he stammered, the blood surging back into his heart—"there may be a chance—"

"No, no!" she cried, almost vehemently. "I can't let you go on hoping. It is wrong—-so terribly wrong, You must forget me. You must—"

He seized her other hand and held them both firmly, masterfully.

"See here, my—look at me, dearest! What is wrong? Tell me! You are unhappy. Don't be afraid to tell me. You—you DO love me?"

She drew a long breath through her half-closed lips. Her eyes darkened with pain.

"No. I don't love you. Oh, I am so sorry to have given you—"

He was almost radiant. "Tell me the truth," he cried triumphantly. "Don't hold anything back, darling. If there is anything troubling you, let me shoulder it. I can—I will do anything in the world for you. Listen: I know there's a mystery somewhere. I have felt it about you always. I have seen it in your eyes, I have always sensed it stealing over me when I'm with you—this strange, bewildering atmosphere of—"

"Hush! You must not say anything more," she cried out. "I cannot love you. There is nothing more to be said."

"But I know it now. You do love me. I could shout it to—" The miserable, whipped expression in her eyes checked this outburst. He was struck by it. even dismayed. "My dearest one, my love," he said, with infinite tenderness, "what is it? Tell me!"

He drew her to him. His arm went about her shoulders. The final thrill of ecstasy bounded through his veins. The feel of her! The wonderful, subtle, feminine feel of her! His brain reeled in a new and vast whirl of intoxication.

She sat there very still and unresisting, her hand to her lips, uttering no word, scarcely breathing. He waited. He gave her time. After a little while her fingers strayed to the crown of her limp, rakish panama. They found the single hat-pin and drew it out. He smiled as he pushed the hat away and then pressed her dark little head against his breast. Her blue eyes were swimming.

"Just this once, just this once," she murmured with a sob in her voice. Her hand stole upward and caressed his brown cheek and throat. Tears of joy started in his eyes—tears of exquisite delight.

"Good God, Hetty, I—I can't do without you," he whispered, shaken by his passion. "Nothing can come between us. I must have you always like this."

"Che sara, sara," she sighed, like the breath of the summer wind as it sings in the trees.

The minutes passed and neither spoke. His rapt gaze hung upon the glossy crown that pressed against him so gently. He could not see her eyes, but somehow he felt they were tightly shut, as if in pain.

"I love you, Hetty. Nothing can matter," he whispered at last. "Tell me what it is."

She lifted her head and gently withdrew herself from his embrace. He did not oppose her, noting the serious, almost sombre look in her eyes as she turned to regard him steadfastly, an unwavering integrity of purpose in their depths.

She had made up her mind to tell him a part of the truth. "Brandon, I am Hetty Glynn."

He started, not so much in surprise as at the abruptness with which she made the announcement.

"I have been sure of it, dear, from the beginning," he said quietly.

Then her tongue was loosed. The words rushed to her lips. "I was Hawkright's model for six months. I posed for all those studies, and for the big canvas in the academy. It was either that or starvation. Oh, you will hate me—you must hate me."

He laid his hand on her hair, a calm smile on his lips. "I can't love and hate at the same time," he said. "There was nothing wrong in what you did for Hawkright. I am a painter, you know. I understand. Does—does Mrs. Wrandall know all this?"

"Yes—everything. She knows and understands. She is an angel, Brandon, an angel from heaven. But," she burst forth, "I am not altogether a sham. I AM the daughter of Colonel Castleton, and I AM the cousin of all the Murgatroyds,—the poor relation. It isn't as if I were the scum of the earth, is it? I AM a Castleton. My father comes of a noble family. And, Brandon, the only thing I've ever done in my life that I am really ashamed of is the deception I practised on you when you brought that magazine to me and faced me with it. I did not lie to you. I simply let you believe I was not the—the person you thought I was. But I deceived you—"

"No, you did not deceive me," he said gently. "I read the truth in your dear eyes."

"There are other things, too. I shall not speak of them, except to repeat that I have not done anything else in all my life that I should be ashamed of." Her eyes were burning with earnestness. He could not but understand what she meant.

Again he stroked her hair. "I am sure of that," he said.

"My mother was Kitty Glynn, the actress. My father, a younger son, fell in love with her. They were married against the wishes of his father, who cut him off. He was in the service, and he was brave enough to stick. They went to one of the South African garrisons, and I was born there. Then to India. Then back to London, where an aunt had died, leaving my father quite a comfortable fortune. But his old friends would have nothing to do with him. He had lived—well, he had made life a hell for my mother in those frontier posts. He deserted us in the end, after he had squandered the fortune. My mother made no effort to compel him to provide for her or for me. She was proud. She was hurt. To-day he is in India, still in the service, a martinet with a record for bravery on the field of battle that cannot be taken from him, no matter what else may befall. I hear from him once or twice a year. That is all I can tell you about him. My mother died three years ago, after two years of invalidism. During those years I tried to repay her for the sacrifice she had made in giving me the education, the—" She choked up for a second, and then went bravely on. "Her old manager made a place for me in one of his companies. I took my mother's name, Hetty Glynn, and—well, for a season and a half I was in the chorus. I could not stay there. I COULD not," she repeated with a shudder. "I gave it up after my mother's death. I was fairly well equipped for work as a children's governess, so I engaged myself to—"