WHEN A MAN MARRIES

By Mary Roberts Rinehart

Contents

 I At Least I Meant Well II The Way It Began III I Might Have Known It IV The Door Was Closed V From The Tree Of Love VI A Mighty Poor Joke VII We Make An Omelet VIII Correspondents' Department IX Flannigan's Find X On The Stairs XI I Make A Discovery XII The Roof Garden XIII He Does Not Deny It XIV Almost, But Not Quite XV Suspicion and Discord XVI I Face Flannigan XVII A Clash and A Kiss XVIII It's All My Fault XIX The Harbison Man XX Breaking Out In A New Place XXI A Bar of Soap XXII It Was A Delirium XXIII Coming

 Needles and pins Needles and pins, When a man marries His trouble begins. 

Chapter I. AT LEAST I MEANT WELL

When the dreadful thing occurred that night, every one turned on me. The injustice of it hurt me most. They said I got up the dinner, thatI asked them to give up other engagements and come, that I promised allkinds of jollification, if they would come; and then when they did comeand got in the papers and every one--but ourselves--laughed himselfblack in the face, they turned on ME! I, who suffered ten times to theirone! I shall never forget what Dallas Brown said to me, standing with acoal shovel in one hand and a--well, perhaps it would be better to tellit all in the order it happened. 

It began with Jimmy Wilson and a conspiracy, was helped on by afoot-square piece of yellow paper and a Japanese butler, and itenmeshed and mixed up generally ten respectable members of society anda policeman. Incidentally, it involved a pearl collar and a box of soap, which sounds incongruous, doesn't it?

It is a great misfortune to be stout, especially for a man. Jim wasrotund and looked shorter than he really was, and as all the lines ofhis face, or what should have been lines, were really dimples, his facewas about as flexible and full of expression as a pillow in a tightcover. The angrier he got the funnier he looked, and when he was raging, and his neck swelled up over his collar and got red, he was entrancing. And everybody liked him, and borrowed money from him, and laughed at hispictures (he has one in the Hargrave gallery in London now, so peoplebuy them instead), and smoked his cigarettes, and tried to steal hisJap. The whole story hinges on the Jap. 

The trouble was, I think, that no one took Jim seriously. His ambitionin life was to be taken seriously, but people steadily refused to. Hisart was a huge joke--except to himself. If he asked people to dinner, every one expected a frolic. When he married Bella Knowles, peoplechuckled at the wedding, and considered it the wildest prank of Jimmy'scareer, although Jim himself seemed to take it awfully hard. 

We had all known them both for years. I went to Farmington with Bella, and Anne Brown was her matron of honor when she married Jim. My firstwinter out, Jimmy had paid me a lot of attention. He painted my portraitin oils and had a studio tea to exhibit it. It was a very nice picture, but it did not look like me, so I stayed away from the exhibition. Jimasked me to. He said he was not a photographer, and that anyhow the restof my features called for the nose he had given me, and that all theGreuze women have long necks. I have not. 

After I had refused Jim twice he met Bella at a camp in the Adirondacksand when he came back he came at once to see me. He seemed to think Iwould be sorry to lose him, and he blundered over the telling for twentyminutes. Of course, no woman likes to lose a lover, no matter what shemay say about it, but Jim had been getting on my nerves for some time, and I was much calmer than he expected me to be. 

"If you mean, " I said finally in desperation, "that you and Bellaare--are in love, why don't you say so, Jim? I think you will find thatI stand it wonderfully. "

He brightened perceptibly. 

"I didn't know how you would take it, Kit, " he said, "and I hope we willalways be bully friends. You are absolutely sure you don't care a whoopfor me?"

"Absolutely, " I replied, and we shook hands on it. Then he began aboutBella; it was very tiresome. 

Bella is a nice girl, but I had roomed with her at school, and I wasunder no illusions. When Jim raved about Bella and her banjo, and Bellaand her guitar, I had painful moments when I recalled Bella, learningher two songs on each instrument, and the old English ballad she hadlearned to play on the harp. When he said she was too good for him, Inever batted an eye. And I shook hands solemnly across the tea-tableagain, and wished him happiness--which was sincere enough, buthopeless--and said we had only been playing a game, but that it was timeto stop playing. Jim kissed my hand, and it was really very touching. 

We had been the best of friends ever since. Two days before the weddinghe came around from his tailor's, and we burned all his letters to me. He would read one and say: "Here's a crackerjack, Kit, " and pass itto me. And after I had read it we would lay it on the firelog, and Jimwould say, "I am not worthy of her, Kit. I wonder if I can make herhappy?" Or--"Did you know that the Duke of Belford proposed to her inLondon last winter?"

Of course, one has to take the woman's word about a thing like that, butthe Duke of Belford had been mad about Maude Richard all that winter. 

You can see that the burning of the letters, which was meant to bereminiscently sentimental, a sort of how-silly-we-were-but-it-isall-over-now occasion, became actually a two hours' eulogy of Bella. Andjust when I was bored to death, the Mercer girls dropped in and heardJim begin to read one commencing "dearest Kit. " And the next day afterthe rehearsal dinner, they told Bella!

There was very nearly no wedding at all. Bella came to see me in afrenzy the next morning and threw Jim and his two-hundred odd pounds inmy face, and although I explained it all over and over, she never quiteforgave me. That was what made it so hard later--the situation wouldhave been bad enough without that complication. 

They went abroad on their wedding journey, and stayed several months. And when Jim came back he was fatter than ever. Everybody noticed it. Bella had a gymnasium fitted up in a corner of the studio, but he wouldnot use it. He smoked a pipe and painted all day, and drank beer andWOULD eat starches or whatever it is that is fattening. But he adoredBella, and he was madly jealous of her. At dinners he used to glare atthe man who took her in, although it did not make him thin. Bella wasflirting, too, and by the time they had been married a year, peoplehitched their chairs together and dropped their voices when they werementioned. 

Well, on the anniversary of the day Bella left him--oh yes, she left himfinally. She was intense enough about some things, and she said it goton her nerves to have everybody chuckle when they asked for her husband. They would say, "Hello, Bella! How's Bubbles? Still banting?" And Bellawould try to laugh and say, "He swears his tailor says his waist issmaller, but if it is he must be growing hollow in the back. "

But she got tired of it at last. Well, on the second anniversary ofBella's departure, Jimmy was feeling pretty glum, and as I say, I amvery fond of Jim. The divorce had just gone through and Bella had takenher maiden name again and had had an operation for appendicitis. Weheard afterward that they didn't find an appendix, and that the one theyshowed her in a glass jar WAS NOT HERS! But if Bella ever suspected, shedidn't say. Whether the appendix was anonymous or not, she got box afterbox of flowers that were, and of course every one knew that it was Jimwho sent them. 

To go back to the anniversary, I went to Rothberg's to see thecollection of antique furniture--mother was looking for a sideboardfor father's birthday in March--and I met Jimmy there, boring into aworm-hole in a seventeenth-century bedpost with the end of a match, andlooking his nearest to sad. When he saw me he came over. 

"I'm blue today, Kit, " he said, after we had shaken hands. "Come andhelp me dig bait, and then let's go fishing. If there's a worm in everyhole in that bedpost, we could go into the fish business. It's a goodbusiness. "

"Better than painting?" I asked. But he ignored my gibe and swelled upalarmingly in order to sigh. 

"This is the worst day of the year for me, " he affirmed, staringstraight ahead, "and the longest. Look at that crazy clock over there. If you want to see your life passing away, if you want to see the stepsby which you are marching to eternity, watch that clock marking thetime. Look at that infernal hand staying quiet for sixty seconds andthen jumping forward to catch up with the procession. Ugh!"

"See here, Jim, " I said, leaning forward, "you're not well. You can't gothrough the rest of the day like this. I know what you'll do; you'llgo home to play Grieg on the pianola, and you won't eat any dinner. " Helooked guilty. 

"Not Grieg, " he protested feebly. "Beethoven. "

"You're not going to do either, " I said with firmness. "You are goingright home to unpack those new draperies that Harry Bayles sent you fromShanghai, and you are going to order dinner for eight--that will be twotables of bridge. And you are not going to touch the pianola. "

He did not seem enthusiastic, but he rose and picked up his hat, andstood looking down at me where I sat on an old horse-hair covered sofa. 

"I wish to thunder I had married you!" he said savagely. "You're thefinest girl I know, Kit, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, and you are going to throwyourself away on Jack Manning, or Max, or some other--"

"Nothing of the sort, " I said coldly, "and the fact that you didn'tmarry me does not give you the privilege of abusing my friends. Anyhow, I don't like you when you speak like that. "

Jim took me to the door and stopped there to sigh. 

"I haven't been well, " he said heavily. "Don't eat, don't sleep. Wouldn't you think I'd lose flesh? Kit"--he lowered his voicesolemnly--"I have gained two pounds!"

I said he didn't look it, which appeared to comfort him somewhat, and, because we were old friends, I asked him where Bella was. He said hethought she was in Europe, and that he had heard she was going to marryReggie Wolfe. Then he signed again, muttered something about orderingthe funeral baked meats to be prepared and left me. 

That was my entire share in the affair. I was the victim, both ofcircumstances and of their plot, which was mad on the face of it. 

During the entire time they never once let me forget that I got up thedinner, that I telephoned around for them. They asked me why I couldn'tcook--when not one of them knew one side of a range from the other. Andfor Anne Brown to talk the way she did--saying I had always been crazyabout Jim, and that she believed I had known all along that his aunt wascoming--for Anne to talk like that was sheer idiocy. Yes, there was anaunt. The Japanese butler started the trouble, and Aunt Selina carriedit along. 

Chapter II. THE WAY IT BEGAN

It makes me angry every time I think how I tried to make that dinner asuccess. I canceled a theater engagement, and I took the Mercer girls inthe electric brougham father had given me for Christmas. Their chauffeurhad been gone for hours with their machine, and they had telephoned allthe police stations without success. They were afraid that there hadbeen an awful smash; they could easily have replaced Bartlett, as Lolliesaid, but it takes so long to get new parts for those foreign cars. 

Jim had a house well up-town, and it stood just enough apart fromthe other houses to be entirely maddening later. It was a three-storyaffair, with a basement kitchen and servants' dining room. Then, ofcourse, there were cellars, as we found out afterward. On the firstfloor there was a large square hall, a formal reception room, behind ita big living room that was also a library, then a den, and back of alla Georgian dining room, with windows high above the ground. On thetop floor Jim had a studio, like every other one I ever saw--perhaps alittle mussier. Jim was really a grind at his painting, and therewere cigarette ashes and palette knives and buffalo rugs and shieldseverywhere. It is strange, but when I think of that terrible house, Ialways see the halls, enormous, covered with heavy rugs, and stairs thatwould have taken six housemaids to keep in proper condition. I dreamabout those stairs, stretching above me in a Jacob's ladder of shiningwood and Persian carpets, going up, up, clear to the roof. 

The Dallas Browns walked; they lived in the next block. And they broughtwith them a man named Harbison, that no one knew. Anne said he wouldbe great sport, because he was terribly serious, and had the mostexaggerated ideas of society, and loathed extravagance, and builtbridges or something. She had put away her cigarettes since he had beenwith them--he and Dallas had been college friends--and the only chanceshe had to smoke was when she was getting her hair done. And she hadsinged off quite a lot--a burnt offering, she called it. 

"My dear, " she said over the telephone, when I invited her, "I want youto know him. He'll be crazy about you. That type of man, big and deadlyearnest, always falls in love with your type of girl, the appealingsort, you know. And he has been too busy, up to now, to know what loveis. But mind, don't hurt him; he's a dear boy. I'm half in love with himmyself, and Dallas trots around at his heels like a poodle. "

But all Anne's geese are swans, so I thought little of the Harbison manexcept to hope that he played respectable bridge, and wouldn't mark thecards with a steel spring under his finger nail, as one of her "finds"had done. 

We all arrived about the same time, and Anne and I went upstairstogether to take off our wraps in what had been Bella's dressing room. It was Anne who noticed the violets. 

"Look at that!" she nudged me, when the maid was examining her wrapbefore she laid it down. "What did I tell you, Kit? He's still quite madabout her. "

Jim had painted Bella's portrait while they were going up the Nile ontheir wedding trip. It looked quite like her, if you stood well off inthe middle of the room and if the light came from the right. And justbeneath it, in a silver vase, was a bunch of violets. It was reallytouching, and violets were fabulous. It made me want to cry, andto shake Bella soundly, and to go down and pat Jim on his generousshoulder, and tell him what a good fellow I thought him, and thatBella wasn't worth the dust under his feet. I don't know much aboutpsychology, but it would be interesting to know just what effect thoseviolets and my sympathy for Jim had in influencing my decision a halfhour later. It is not surprising, under the circumstances, that for sometime after the odor of violets made me ill. 

We all met downstairs in the living room, quite informally, and Dallaswas banging away at the pianola, tramping the pedals with the delicacyand feeling of a football center rush kicking a goal. Mr. Harbison wasstanding near the fire, a little away from the others, and he was allthat Anne had said and more in appearance. He was tall--not too tall, and very straight. And after one got past the oddity of his face beingbronze-colored above his white collar, and of his brown hair beingsun-bleached on top until it was almost yellow, one realized that he wasvery handsome. He had what one might call a resolute nose and chin, anda pleasant, rather humorous, mouth. And he had blue eyes that were, at that moment, wandering with interest over the lot of us. Somebodyshouted his name to me above the Tristan and Isolde music, and I heldout my hand. 

Instantly I had the feeling one sometimes has, of having done just thatsame thing, with the same surroundings, in the same place, years before, I was looking up at him, and he was staring down at me and holding myhand. And then the music stopped and he was saying:

"Where was it?"

"Where was what?" I asked. The feeling was stronger than ever with hisvoice. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said, and let my hand drop. "Just for a secondI had an idea that we had met before somewhere, a long time ago. Isuppose--no, it couldn't have happened, or I should remember. " He wassmiling, half at himself. 

"No, " I smiled back at him. "It didn't happen, I'm afraid--unless wedreamed it. "

"We?"

"I felt that way, too, for a moment. "

"The Brushwood Boy!" he said with conviction. "Perhaps we will find acommon dream life, where we knew each other. You remember the BrushwoodBoy loved the girl for years before they really met. " But this was alittle too rapid, even for me. 

"Nothing so sentimental, I'm afraid, " I retorted. "I have had exactlythe same sensation sometimes when I have sneezed. "

Betty Mercer captured him then and took him off to see Jim's newestpicture. Anne pounced on me at once. 

"Isn't he delicious?" she demanded. "Did you ever see such shoulders?And such a nose? And he thinks we are parasites, cumberers of the earth, Heaven knows what. He says every woman ought to know how to earn herliving, in case of necessity! I said I could make enough at bridge, andhe thought I was joking! He's a dear!" Anne was enthusiastic. 

I looked after him. Oddly enough the feeling that we had met beforestuck to me. Which was ridiculous, of course, for we learned afterwardthat the nearest we ever came to meeting was that our mothers had beenschool friends! Just then I saw Jim beckoning to me crazily from theden. He looked quite yellow, and he had been running his fingers throughhis hair. 

"For Heaven's sake, come in, Kit!" he said. "I need a cool head. Didn'tI tell you this is my calamity day?"

"Cook gone?" I asked with interest. I was starving. 

He closed the door and took up a tragic attitude in front of the fire. "Did you ever hear of Aunt Selina?" he demanded. 

"I knew there WAS one, " I ventured, mindful of certain gossip as towhence Jimmy derived the Wilson income. 

Jim himself was too worried to be cautious. He waved a brazen hand atthe snug room, at the Japanese prints on the walls, at the rugs, at theteakwood cabinets and the screen inlaid with pearl and ivory. 

"All this, " he said comprehensively, "every bite I eat, clothes I wear, drinks I drink--you needn't look like that; I don't drink so darnedmuch--everything comes from Aunt Selina--buttons, " he finished with agroan. 

"Selina Buttons, " I said reflectively. "I don't remember ever havingknown any one named Buttons, although I had a cat once--"

"Damn the cat!" he said rudely. "Her name isn't Buttons. Her name isCaruthers, my Aunt Selina Caruthers, and the money comes from buttons. "

"Oh!" feebly. 

"It's an old business, " he went on, with something of proprietary pride. "My grandfather founded it in 1775. Made buttons for the ContinentalArmy. "

"Oh, yes, " I said. "They melted the buttons to make bullets, didn'tthey? Or they melted bullets to make buttons? Which was it?"

But again he interrupted. 

"It's like this, " he went on hurriedly. "Aunt Selina believes in me. Shelikes pictures, and she wanted me to paint, if I could. I'd have givenup long ago--oh, I know what you think of my work--but for Aunt Selina. She has encouraged me, and she's done more than that; she's paid thebills. "

"Dear Aunt Selina, " I breathed. 

"When I got married, " Jim persisted, "Aunt Selina doubled my allowance. I always expected to sell something, and begin to make money, and inthe meantime what she advanced I considered as a loan. " He was eyeing medefiantly, but I was growing serious. It was evident from the preamblethat something was coming. 

"To understand, Kit, " he went on dubiously, "you would have to know her. She won't stand for divorce. She thinks it is a crime. "

"What!" I sat up. I have always regarded divorce as essentiallydisagreeable, like castor oil, but necessary. 

"Oh, you know well enough what I'm driving at, " he burst out savagely. "She doesn't know Bella has gone. She thinks I am living in a littledomestic heaven, and--she is coming tonight to hear me flap my wings. "

"Tonight!"

I don't think Jimmy had known that Dallas Brown had come in and waslistening. I am sure I had not. Hearing his chuckle at the doorwaybrought us up with a jerk. 

"Where has Aunt Selina been for the last two or three years?" he askedeasily. 

Jim turned, and his face brightened. 

"Europe. Look here, Dal, you're a smart chap. She'll only be here aboutfour hours. Can't you think of some way to get me out of this? I want tolet her down easy, too. I'm mighty fond of Aunt Selina. Can't we--can'tI say Bella has a headache?"

"Rotten!" laconically. 

"Gone out of town?" Jim was desperate. 

"And you with a houseful of dinner guests! Try again, Jim. "

"I have it, " Jim said suddenly. "Dallas, ask Anne if she won't playhostess for tonight. Be Mrs. Wilson pro tem. Anne would love it. AuntSelina never saw Bella. Then, afterward, next year, when I'm hung inthe Academy and can stand on my feet"--("Not if you're hung, " Dallasinterjected. )--"I'll break the truth to her. "

But Dallas was not enthusiastic. 

"Anne wouldn't do at all, " he declared. "She'd be talking about thekids before she knew it, and patting me on the head. " He said itcomplacently; Anne flirts, but they are really devoted. 

"One of the Mercer girls?" I suggested, but Jimmy raised a horrifiedhand. 

"You don't know Aunt Selina, " he protested. "I couldn't offer Leila inthe gown she's got on, unless she wore a shawl, and Betty is too fair. "

Anne came in just then, and the whole story had to be told again to her. She was ecstatic. She said it was good enough for a play, and that ofcourse she would be Mrs. Jimmy for that length of time. 

"You know, " she finished, "if it were not for Dal, I would be Mrs. Jimmyfor ANY length of time. I have been devoted to you for years, Billiken. "

But Dallas refused peremptorily. 

"I'm not jealous, " he explained, straightening and throwing out hischest, "but--well, you don't look the part, Anne. You're--you aregrowing matronly, not but what you suit ME all right. And then I'dforget and call you 'mammy, ' which would require explanation. I thinkit's up to you, Kit. "

"I shall do nothing of the sort!" I snapped. "It's ridiculous!"

"I dare you!" said Dallas. 

I refused. I stood like a rock while the storm surged around me and beatover me. I must say for Jim that he was merely pathetic. He said that myhappiness was first; that he would not give me an uncomfortable minutefor anything on earth; and that Bella had been perfectly right toleave him, because he was a sinking ship, and deserved to be turned outpenniless into the world. After which mixed figure, he poured himselfsomething to drink, and his hands were shaking. 

Dal and Anne stood on each side of him and patted him on the shouldersand glared across at me. I felt that if I was a rock, Jim's ship hadstruck on me and was sinking, as he said, because of me. I began tocrumble. 

"What--what time does she leave?" I asked, wavering. 

"Ten: nine; KIT, are you going to do it?"

"No!" I gave a last clutch at my resolution. "People who do that kindof thing always get into trouble. She might miss her train. She's almostcertain to miss her train. "

"You're temporizing, " Dallas said sternly. "We won't let her miss hertrain; you can be sure of that. "

"Jim, " Anne broke in suddenly, "hasn't she a picture of Bella? There'snot the faintest resemblance between Bella and Kit. "

Jim became downcast again. "I sent her a miniature of Bella a couple ofyears ago, " he said despondently. "Did it myself. "

But Dal said he remembered the miniature, and it looked more like methan Bella, anyhow. So we were just where we started. And down inside ofme I had a premonition that I was going to do just what they wantedme to do, and get into all sorts of trouble, and not be thanked for itafter all. Which was entirely correct. And then Leila Mercer came andbanged at the door and said that dinner had been announced ages ago andthat everybody was famishing. With the hurry and stress, and poor Jim'sdistracted face, I weakened. 

"I feel like a cross between an idiot and a criminal, " I said shortly, "and I don't know particularly why every one thinks I should be thevictim for the sacrifice. But if you will promise to get her off earlyto her train, and if you will stand by me and not leave me alone withher, I--I might try it. "

"Of course, we'll stand by you!" they said in chorus. "We won't let youstick!" And Dal said, "You're the right sort of girl, Kit. And afterit's all over, you'll realize that it's the biggest kind of lark. Thinkhow you are saving the old lady's feeling! When you are an elderlyperson yourself, Kit, you will appreciate what you are doing tonight. "

Yes, they said they would stand by me, and that I was a heroine and theonly person there clever enough to act the part, and that they wouldn'tlet me stick! I am not bitter now, but that is what they promised. Oh, Iam not defending myself; I suppose I deserved everything that happened. But they told me that she would be there only between trains, and thatshe was deaf, and that I had an opportunity to save a fellow-being fromruin. So in the end I capitulated. 

When they opened the door into the living room, Max Reed had arrived andwas helping to hide a decanter and glasses, and somebody said a cab wasat the door. 

And that was the way it began. 

Chapter III. I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN IT

The minute I had consented I regretted it. After all, what were Jimmy'stroubles to me? Why should I help him impose on an unsuspecting elderlywoman? And it was only putting off discovery anyhow. Sooner or later, she would learn of the divorce, and--Just at that instant my eyes fellon Mr. Harbison--Tom Harbison, as Anne called him. He was looking onwith an amused, half-puzzled smile, while people were rushing aroundhiding the roulette wheel and things of which Miss Caruthers mightdisapprove, and Betty Mercer was on her knees winding up a toy bear thatMax had brought her. What would he think? It was evident that he thoughtbadly of us already--that he was contemptuously amused, and then to haveto ask him to lend himself to the deception!

With a gasp I hurled myself after Jimmy, only to hear a strange voice inthe hall and to know that I was too late. I was in for it, whatever wascoming. It was Aunt Selina who was coming--along the hall, followed byJim, who was mopping his face and trying not to notice the paralyzedsilence in the library. 

Aunt Selina met me in the doorway. To my frantic eyes she seemed totower above us by at least a foot, and beside her Jimmy was a red, perspiring cherub. 

"Here she is, " Jimmy said, from behind a temporary eclipse of blackcloak and traveling bag. He was on top of the situation now, and he wasmendaciously cheerful. He had NOT said, "Here is my wife. " That wouldhave been a lie. No, Jimmy merely said, "Here she is. " If Aunt Selinachose to think me Bella, was it not her responsibility? And if I choseto accept the situation, was it not mine? Dallas Brown came forwardgravely as Aunt Selina folded over and kissed me, and surreptitiouslypatted me with one hand while he held out the other to Miss Caruthers. Iloathed him!

"We always expect something unusual from James, Miss Caruthers, " hesaid, with his best manner, "but THIS--this is beyond our wildestdreams. "

Well, it's too awful to linger over. Anne took her upstairs and intoBella's bedroom. It was a fancy of Jim's to leave that room just asBella had left it, dusty dance cards and favors hanging around and apair of discarded slippers under the bed. I don't think it had beenswept since Bella left it. I believe in sentiment, but I like it brushedand dusted and the cobwebs off of it, and when Aunt Selina put down herbonnet, it stirred up a gray-white cloud that made her cough. She didnot say anything, but she looked around the room grimly, and I saw herrun her finger over the back of a chair before she let Hannah, the maid, put her cloak on it. 

Anne looked frightened. She ran into Bella's bath and wet the end of atowel and when Hannah was changing Aunt Selina's collar--her concessionto evening dress--Anne wiped off the obvious places on the furniture. She did it stealthily, but Aunt Selina saw her in the glass. 

"What's that young woman's name?" she asked me sharply, when Anne hadtaken the towel out to hide it. 

"Anne Brown, Mrs. Dallas Brown, " I replied meekly. Every one repliedmeekly to Aunt Selina. 

"Does she live here?"

"Oh, no, " I said airily. "They are here to dinner, she and her husband. They are old friends of Jim's--and mine. "

"Seems to have a good eye for dirt, " said Aunt Selina and went onfastening her brooch. When she was finally ready, she took a bead pursefrom somewhere about her waist and took out a half dollar. She held itup before Hannah's eyes. 

"Tomorrow morning, " she said sternly, "You take off that white capand that fol-de-rol apron and that black henrietta cloth, and put ona calico wrapper. And when you've got this room aired and swept, Mrs. Wilson will give you this. "

Hannah took two steps back and caught hold of a chair; she staredhelplessly from Aunt Selina to the half dollar, and then at me. Anne wastrying not to catch my eye. 

"And another thing, " Aunt Selina said, from the head of the stairs, "Isent those towels over from Ireland. Tell her to wash and bleach the oneMrs. What's-her-name Brown used as a duster. "

Anne was quite crushed as we went down the stairs. I turned once, half-way down, and her face was a curious mixture of guilt and hopelesswrath. Over her shoulder, I could see Hannah, wide-eyed and puzzled, staring after us. 

Jim presented everybody, and then he went into the den and closed thedoor and we heard him unlock the cellarette. Aunt Selina looked atLeila's bare shoulders and said she guessed she didn't take coldeasily, and conversation rather languished. Max Reed was looking like athundercloud, and he came over to me with a lowering expression that Ihad learned to dread in him. 

"What fool nonsense is this?" he demanded. "What in the world possessedyou, Kit, to put yourself in such an equivocal position? Unless"--hestopped and turned a little white--"unless you are going to marry Jim. "

I am sorry for Max. He is such a nice boy, and good looking, too, ifonly he were not so fierce, and did not want to make love to me. Nomatter what I do, Max always disapproves of it. I have always had adeeply rooted conviction that if I should ever in a weak moment marryMax, he would disapprove of that, too, before I had done it very long. 

"Are you?" he demanded, narrowing his eyes--a sign of unusually badhumor. 

"Am I what?"

"Going to marry him?"

"If you mean Jim, " I said with dignity, "I haven't made up my mind yet. Besides, he hasn't asked me. "

Aunt Selina had been talking Woman's Suffrage in front of the fireplace, but now she turned to me. 

"Is this the vase Cousin Jane Whitcomb sent you as a wedding present?"she demanded, indicating a hideous urn-shaped affair on the mantel. Itcame to me as an inspiration that Jim had once said it was an ancestralurn, so I said without hesitation that it was. And because there was apause and every one was looking at us, I added that it was a beautifulthing. 

Aunt Selina sniffed. 

"Hideous!" she said. "It looks like Cousin Jane, shape and coloring. "

Then she looked at it more closely, pounced on it, turned it upside downand shook it. A card fell out, which Dallas picked up and gave her witha bow. Jim had come out of the den and was dancing wildly around andbeckoning to me. By the time I had made out that that was NOT the vaseCousin Jane had sent us as a wedding present, Aunt Selina had examinedthe card. Then she glared across at me and, stooping, put the card inthe fire. I did not understand at all, but I knew I had in some way donethe unforgivable thing. Later, Dal told me it was HER card, and thatshe had sent the vase to Jim at Christmas, with a generous check inside. When she straightened from the fireplace, it was to a new theme, whichshe attacked with her usual vigor. The vase incident was over, but shenever forgot it. She proved that she never did when she sent me twourn-shaped vases with Paul and Virginia on them, when I--that is, lateron. 

"The Cause in England has made great strides, " she announced from thefireplace. "Soon the hand that rocks the cradle will be the hand thatactually rules the world. " Here she looked at me. 

"I'm not up on such things, " Max said blandly, having recovered some ofhis good humor, "but--isn't it usually a foot that rocks the cradle?"

Aunt Selina turned on him and Mr. Harbison, who were standing together, with a snort. 

"What have you, or YOU, ever done for the independence of woman?" shedemanded. 

Mr. Harbison smiled. He had been looking rather grave until then. "Wehave at least remained unmarried, " he retorted. And then dinner wasagain announced. 

He was to take me out, and he came across the room to where I satcollapsed in a chair, and bent over me. 

"Do you know, " he said, looking down at me with his clear, disconcertinggaze, "do you know that I have just grasped the situation? There wassuch a noise that I did not hear your name, and I am only realizing nowthat you are my hostess! I don't know why I got the impression that thiswas a bachelor establishment, but I did. Odd, wasn't it?"

I positively couldn't look away from him. My features seemed frozen, andmy eyes were glued to his. As for telling him the truth--well, mytongue refused to move. I intended to tell him during dinner if I hadan opportunity; I honestly did. But the more I looked at him and sawhow candid his eyes were, and how stern his mouth might be, the more Ishivered at the plunge. And, of course, as everybody knows now, I didn'ttell him at all. And every moment I expected that awful old woman toask me what I paid my cook, and when I had changed the color of myhair--Bella's being black. 

Dinner was a half hour late when we finally went out, Jimmy leading offwith Aunt Selina, and I, as hostess, trailing behind the procession withMr. Harbison. Dallas took in the two Mercer girls, for we were one manshort, and Max took Anne. Leila Mercer was so excited that she wriggled, and as for me, the candles and the orchids--everything--danced aroundin a circle, and I just seemed to catch the back of my chair as it flewpast. Jim had ordered away the wines and brought out some weak and cheapChianti. Dallas looked gloomy at the change, but Jim explained inan undertone that Aunt Selina didn't approve of expensive vintages. Naturally, the meal was glum enough. 

Aunt Selina had had her dinner on the train, so she spent her time inasking me questions the length of the table, and in getting acquaintedwith me. She had brought a bottle of some sort of medicine downstairswith her, and she took a claret-glassful, while she talked. The stuffwas called Pomona; shall I ever forget it?

It was Mr. Harbison who first noticed Takahiro. Jimmy's Jap had been theonly thing in the menage that Bella declared she had hated to leave. But he was doing the strangest things: his little black eyes shiftednervously, and he looked queer. 

"What's wrong with him?" Mr. Harbison asked me finally, when he saw thatI noticed. "Is he ill?"

Then Aunt Selina's voice from the other end of the table:

"Bella, " she called, in a high shrill tone, "do you let James eatcucumbers?"

"I think he must be, " I said hurriedly aside to Mr. Harbison. "See howhis hands shake!" But Selina would not be ignored. 

"Cucumbers and strawberries, " she repeated impressively. "I wassaying, Bella, that cucumbers have always given James the most fearfulindigestion. And yet I see you serve them at your table. Do you rememberwhat I wrote you to give him when he has his dreadful spells?"

I was quite speechless; every one was looking, and no one could help. Itwas clear Jim was racking his brain, and we sat staring desperately ateach other across the candles. Everything I had ever known faded fromme, eight pairs of eyes bored into me, Mr. Harbison's politely amused. 

"I don't remember, " I said at last. "Really, I don't believe--" AuntSelina smiled in a superior way. 

"Now, don't you recall it?" she insisted. "I said: 'Baking soda in watertaken internally for cucumbers; baking soda and water externally, rubbedon, when he gets that dreadful, itching strawberry rash. '"

I believe the dinner went on. Somebody asked Aunt Selina how muchover-charge she had paid in foreign hotels, and after that she was asharmless as a dove. 

Then half way through the dinner we heard a crash in Takahiro'spantry, and when he did not appear again, Jim got up and went out toinvestigate. He was gone quite a little while, and when he came back helooked worried. 

"Sick, " he replied to our inquiring glances. "One of the maids will comein. They have sent for a doctor. "

Aunt Selina was for going out at once and "fixing him up, " as she putit, but Dallas gently interfered. 

"I wouldn't, Miss Caruthers, " he said, in the deferential manner he hadadopted toward her. "You don't know what it may be. He's been lookingspotty all evening. "

"It might be scarlet fever, " Max broke in cheerfully. "I say, scarletfever on a Mongolian--what color would he be, Jimmy? What do yellow andred make? Green?"

"Orange, " Jim said shortly. "I wish you people would remember that weare trying to eat. "

The fact was, however, that no one was really eating, except Mr. Harbison who had given up trying to understand us, considering, nodoubt, our subdued excitement as our normal condition. Ages afterwardI learned that he thought my face almost tragic that night, and that hesupposed from the way I glared across the table, that I had quarreledwith my husband!

"I am afraid you are not well, " he said at last, noticing my fooduntouched on my plate. "We should not have come, any of us. "

"I am perfectly well, " I replied feverishly. "I am never ill. I--I ate alate luncheon. "

He glanced at me keenly. "Don't let them stay and play bridge tonight, "he urged. "Miss Caruthers can be an excuse, can she not? And you arereally fagged. You look it. "

"I think it is only ill humor, " I said, looking directly at him. "I amangry at myself. I have done something silly, and I hate to be silly. "

Max would have said "Impossible, " or something else trite. The Harbisonman looked at me with interested, serious eyes. 

"Is it too late to undo it?" he asked. 

And then and there I determined that he should never know the truth. Hecould go back to South America and build bridges and make love to theSpanish girls (or are they Spanish down there?) and think of me alwaysas a married woman, married to a dilettante artist, inclined to bestout--the artist, not I--and with an Aunt Selina Caruthers who madebuttons and believed in the Cause. But never, NEVER should he think ofme as a silly little fool who pretended that she was the other man'swife and had a lump in her throat because when a really nice man camealong, a man who knew something more than polo and motors, she had tocarry on the deception to keep his respect, and be sedate andmatronly, and see him change from perfect open admiration at first to ahands-off-she-is-my-host's-wife attitude at last. 

"It can never be undone, " I said soberly. 

Well, that's the picture as nearly as I can draw it: a round tablewith a low centerpiece of orchids in lavenders and pink, old silvercandlesticks with filigree shades against the somber wainscoting; ninepeople, two of them unhappy--Jim and I; one of them complacent--AuntSelina; one puzzled--Mr. Harbison; and the rest hysterically mirthful. Add one sick Japanese butler and grind in the mills of the gods. 

Every one promptly forgot Takahiro in the excitement of the game we wereall playing. Finally, however, Aunt Selina, who seemed to have Takahiroon her mind, looked up from her plate. 

"That Jap was speckled, " she asserted. "I wouldn't be surprised if it'smeasles. Has he been sniffling, James?"

"Has he been sniffling?" Jim threw across at me. 

"I hadn't noticed it, " I said meekly, while the others choked. 

Max came to the rescue. "She refused to eat it, " he explained, distinctly and to everybody, apropos absolutely of nothing. "It said onthe box, 'ready cooked and predigested. ' She declared she didn't care whocooked it, but she wanted to know who predigested it. "

As every one wanted to laugh, every one did it then, and under coverof the noise I caught Anne's eye, and we left the dining room. The menstayed, and by the very firmness with which the door closed behind us, Iknew that Dallas and Max were bringing out the bottles that Takahiro hadhidden. I was seething. When Aunt Selina indicated a desire to go overthe house (it was natural that she should want to; it was her house, ina way) I excused myself for a minute and flew back to the dining room. 

It was as I had expected. Jim hadn't cheered perceptibly, and therest were patting him on the back, and pouring things out for him, andsaying, "Poor old Jim" in the most maddening way. And the Harbison manwas looking more and more puzzled, and not at all hilarious. 

I descended on them like a thunderbolt. 

"That's it, " I cried shrewishly, with my back against the door. "Leaveher to me, all of you, and pat each other on the back, and say it's gonesplendidly! Oh, I know you, every one!" Mr. Harbison got up and pulledout a chair, but I couldn't sit; I folded my arms on the back. "After awhile, I suppose, you'll slip upstairs, the four of you, and have yourgame. " They looked guilty. "But I will block that right now. I am goingto stay--here. If Aunt Selina wants me, she can find me--here!"

The first indication those men had that Mr. Harbison didn't know thestate of affairs was when he turned and faced them. 

"Mrs. Wilson is quite right, " he said gravely. "We're a selfish lot. IfMiss Caruthers is a responsibility, let us share her. "

"To arms!" Jim said, with an affectation of lightness, as they put theirglasses down, and threw open the door. Dal's retort, "Whose?" waslost in the confusion, and we went into the library. On the way Dallasmanaged to speak to me. 

"If Harbison doesn't know, don't tell him, " he said in an undertone. "He's a queer duck, in some ways; he mightn't think it funny. "

"Funny, " I choked. "It's the least funny thing I ever experienced. Deceiving that Harbison man isn't so bad--he thinks me crazy, anyhow. He's been staring his eyes out at me--"

"I don't wonder. You're really lovely tonight, Kit, and you look like avixen. "

"But to deceive that harmless old lady--well, thank goodness, it's nine, and she leaves in an hour or so. "

But she didn't and that's the story. 

Chapter IV. THE DOOR WAS CLOSED

It was infuriating to see how much enjoyment every one but Jim andmyself got out of the situation. They howled with mirth over thefeeblest jokes, and when Max told a story without any point whatever, they all had hysteria. Immediately after dinner Aunt Selina had begunon the family connection again, and after two bad breaks on my part, Jimoffered to show her the house. The Mercer girls trailed along, unwillingto lose any of the possibilities. They said afterward that it wasterrible: she went into all the closets, and ran her hand over the topsof doors and kept getting grimmer and grimmer. In the studio they cameacross a life study Jim was doing and she shut her eyes and made thegirls go out while he covered it with a drapery. Lollie! Who did theBacchante dance at three benefits last winter and was learning a new onecalled "Eve"!

When they heard Aunt Selina on the second floor, Anne, Dal and Maxsneaked up to the studio for cigarettes, which left Mr. Harbison to me. I was in the den, sitting in a low chair by the wood fire when he camein. He hesitated in the doorway. 

"Would you prefer being alone, or may I come in?" he asked. "Don't mindbeing frank. I know you are tired. "

"I have a headache, and I am sulking, " I said unpleasantly, "but atleast I am not actively venomous. Come in. "

So he came in and sat down across the hearth from me, and neither of ussaid anything. The firelight flickered over the room, bringing out thefaded hues of the old Japanese prints on the walls, gleaming in themother-of-pearl eyes of the dragon on the screen, setting a grotesquegod on a cabinet to nodding. And it threw into relief the strong profileof the man across from me, as he stared at the fire. 

"I am afraid I am not very interesting, " I said at last, when heshowed no sign of breaking the silence. "The--the illness of the butlerand--Miss Caruthers' arrival, have been upsetting. "

He suddenly roused with a start from a brown reverie. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said, "I--oh, of course not! I was wonderingif I--if you were offended at what I said earlier in the evening;the--Brushwood Boy, you know, and all that. "

"Offended?" I repeated, puzzled. 

"You see, I have been living out of the world so long, and never seeingany women but Indian squaws"--so there were no Spanish girls!--"that I'mafraid I say what comes into my mind without circumlocution. And then--Idid not know you were married. "

"No, oh, no, " I said hastily. "But, of course, the more a woman ismarried--I mean, you can not say too many nice things to married women. They--need them, you know. "

I had floundered miserably, with his eyes on me, and I half expected himto be shocked, or to say that married women should be satisfied with thenice things their husbands say to them. But he merely remarked aproposof nothing, or following a line of thought he had not voiced, that itwas trite but true that a good many men owed their success in life totheir wives. 

"And a good many owe their wives to their success in life, " I retortedcynically. At which he stared at me again. 

It was then that the real complexity of the situation began to develop. Some one had rung the bell and been admitted to the library and a maidcame to the door of the den. When she saw us she stopped uncertainly. Even then it struck me that she looked odd, and she was not in uniform. However, I was not informed at that time about bachelor establishments, and the first thing she said, when she had asked to speak to me in thehall, knocked her and her clothes clear out of my head. Evidently sheknew me. 

"Miss McNair, " she said in a low tone. "There is a lady in the drawingroom, a veiled person, and she is asking for Mr. Wilson. "

"Can you not find him?" I asked. "He is in the house, probably in thestudio. "

The girl hesitated. 

"Excuse me, miss, but Miss Caruthers--"

Then I saw the situation. 

"Never mind, " I said. "Close the door into the drawing room, and I willtell Mr. Wilson. "

But as the girl turned toward the doorway, the person in questionappeared in it, and raised her veil. I was perfectly paralyzed. It wasBella! Bella in a fur coat and a veil, with the most tragic eyes I eversaw and entirely white except for a dab of rouge in the middle of eachcheek. We stared at each other without speech. The maid turned and wentdown the hall, and with that Bella came over to me and clutched me bythe arm. 

"Who was being carried out into that ambulance?" she demanded, glaringat me with the most awful intensity. 

"I'm sure I don't know, Bella, " I said, wriggling away from her fingers. "What in the world are you doing here? I thought you were in Europe. "

"You are hiding something from me!" she accused. "It is Jim! I see it inyour face. "

"Well, it isn't, " I snapped. "It seems to me, really, Bella, that youand Jim ought to be able to manage your own affairs, without dragging mein. " It was not pleasant, but if she was suffering, so was I. "Jim is aswell as he ever was. He's upstairs somewhere. I'll send for him. "

She gripped me again, and held on while her color came back. 

"You'll do nothing of the kind, " she said, and she had quite got hold ofherself again. "I do not want to see him: I hope you don't think, Kit, that I came here to see James Wilson. Why, I have forgotten that thereIS such a person, and you know it. "

Somebody upstairs laughed, and I was growing nervous. What if AuntSelina should come down, or Mr. Harbison come out of the den?

"Why DID you come, then, Bella?" I inquired. "He may come in. "

"I was passing in the motor, " she said, and I honestly think she hoped Iwould believe her, "and I saw that am--" She stopped and began again. "I thought Jim was out of town, and I came to see Takahiro, " she saidbrazenly. "He was devoted to me, and Evans is going to leave. I'll tellyou what to do, Kit. I'll go back to the dining room, and you send Takathere. If any one comes, I can slip into the pantry. "

"It's immoral, " I protested. "It's immoral to steal your--"

"My own butler!" she broke in impatiently. "You're not usually soscrupulous, Kit. Hurry! I hear that hateful Anne Brown. "

So we slid back along the hall, and I rang for Takahiro. But no onecame. 

"I think I ought to tell you, Bella, " I said as we waited, and Bella wasstaring around the room--"I think you ought to know that Miss Caruthersis here. "

Bella shrugged her shoulders. 

"Well, thank goodness, " she said, "I don't have to see her. The onlypleasant thing I remember about my year of married life is that I didNOT meet Aunt Selina. "

I rang again, but still there was no answer. And then it occurred tome that the stillness below stairs was almost oppressive. Bella wasnoticing things, too, for she began to fasten her veil again with amalicious little smile. 

"One of the things I remember my late husband saying, " she observed, "was that HE could manage this house, and had done it for years, withflawless service. Stand on the bell, Kit. "

I did. We stood there, with the table, just as it had been left, betweenus, and waited for a response. Bella was growing impatient. She raisedher eyebrows (she is very handsome, Bella is) and flung out her chin asif she had begun to enjoy the horrible situation. 

I thought I heard a rattle of silver from the pantry just then, and Ihurried to the door in a rage. But the pantry was empty of servants andfull of dishes, and all the lights were out but one, which was burningdimly. I could have sworn that I saw one of the servants duck into thestairway to the basement, but when I got there the stairs were empty, and something was burning in the kitchen below. 

Bella had followed me and was peering over my shoulder curiously. 

"There isn't a servant in the house, " she said triumphantly. And when wewent down to the kitchen, she seemed to be right. It was in disgracefulorder, and one of the bottles of wine that had ben banished from thedining room sat half empty on the floor. 

"Drunk!" Bella said with conviction. But I didn't think so. There hadnot been time enough, for one thing. Suddenly I remembered the ambulancethat had been the cause of Bella's appearance--for no one could believeher silly story about Takahiro. I didn't wait to voice my suspicion toher; I simply left her there, staring helplessly at the confusion, andran upstairs again: through the dining room, past Jimmy and Aunt Selina, past Leila Mercer and Max, who were flirting on the stairs, up, up tothe servants' bedrooms, and there my suspicions were verified. There wasevery evidence of a hasty flight; in three bedrooms five trunks stoodlocked and ominous, and the closets yawned with open doors, empty. Bellahad been right; there was not a servant in the house. 

As I emerged from the untidy emptiness of the servants' wing, I met Mr. Harbison coming out of the studio. 

"I wish you would let me do some of this running about for you, Mrs. Wilson, " he said gravely. "You are not well, and I can't think ofanything worse for a headache. Has the butler's illness clogged thehousehold machinery?"

"Worse, " I replied, trying not to breathe in gasps. "I wouldn't berunning around--like this--but there is not a servant in the house! Theyhave gone, the entire lot. "

"That's odd, " he said slowly. "Gone! Are you sure?"

In reply I pointed to the servants' wing. "Trunks packed, " I saidtragically, "rooms empty, kitchen and pantries, full of dishes. Did youever hear of anything like it?"

"Never, " he asserted. "It makes me suspect--" What he suspected he didnot say; instead he turned on his heel, without a word of explanation, and ran down the stairs. I stood staring after him, wondering if everyone in the place had gone crazy. Then I heard Betty Mercer scream andthe rest talking loud and laughing, and Mr. Harbison came up the stairsagain two at a time. 

"How long has that Jap been ailing, Mrs. Wilson?" he asked. 

"I--I don't know, " I replied helplessly. "What is the trouble, anyhow?"

"I think he probably has something contagious, " he said, "and ithas scared the servants away. As Mr. Brown said, he looked spotty. Isuggested to your husband that it might be as well to get the houseemptied--in case we are correct. "

"Oh, yes, by all means, " I said eagerly. I couldn't get away too soon. "I'll go and get my--" Then I stopped. Why, the man wouldn't expect meto leave; I would have to play out the wretched farce to the end!

"I'll go down and see them off, " I finished lamely, and we went togetherdown the stairs. 

Just for the moment I forgot Bella altogether. I found Aunt Selinabonneted and cloaked, taking a stirrup cup of Pomona for her nerves, and the rest throwing on their wraps in a hurry. Downstairs Max wastelephoning for his car, which wasn't due for an hour, and Jim waswalking up and down, swearing under his breath. With the prospect ofgetting rid of them all, and, of going home comfortably to try to forgetthe whole wretched affair, I cheered up quite a lot. I even played up mypart of hostess, and Dallas told me, aside, that I was a brick. 

Just then Jim threw open the front door. 

There was a man on the top step, with his mouth full of tacks, and hewas nailing something to the door, just below Jim's Florentine bronzeknocker, and standing back with his head on one side to see if it wasstraight. 

"What are you doing?" Jim demanded fiercely, but the man only droveanother tack. It was Mr. Harbison who stepped outside and read the card. 

It said "Smallpox. "

"Smallpox, " Mr. Harbison read, as if he couldn't believe it. Then heturned to us, huddled in the hall. 

"It seems it wasn't measles, after all, " he said cheerfully. "I move weget into Mr. Reed's automobile out there, and have a vaccination party. I suppose even you blase society folk have not exhausted that kind ofdiversion. "

But the man on the step spat his tacks in his hand and spoke for thefirst time. 

"No, you don't, " he said. "Not on your life. Just step back, please, andclose the door. This house is quarantined. "

Chapter V. FROM THE TREE OF LOVE

There is hardly any use trying to describe what followed. Anne Brownbegan to cry, and talk about the children. (She went to Europe once andstayed until they all got over the whooping cough. ) And Dallas said hehad a pull, because his mill controlled I forget how many votes, and thething to do was to be quiet and comfortable and we would get out inthe morning. Max took it as a huge joke, and somebody found him atthe telephone, calling up his club. The Mercer girls were hystericallygiggling, and Aunt Selina sat on a stiff-backed chair and took aromaticspirits of ammonia. As for Jim, he had collapsed on the lowest step ofthe stairs, and sat there with his head in his hands. When he did lookup, he didn't dare to look at me. 

The Harbison man was arguing with the impassive individual on the topstep outside, and I saw him get out his pocketbook and offer a crispbundle of bills. But the man from the board of health only smiled andtacked at his offensive sign. After a while Mr. Harbison came in andclosed the door, and we stared at one another. 

"I know what I'm going to do, " I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. "I'm going to get out through a basement window at the back. I'm goinghome. "

"Home!" Aunt Selina gasped, jumping up and almost dropping her ammoniabottle. "My dear Bella! Home?"

Jimmy groaned at the foot of the stairs, but Anne Brown was getting overher tears and now she turned on me in a temper. 

"It's all your fault, " she said. "I was going to stay at home and get alittle sleep--"

"Well, you can sleep now, " Dallas broke in. "There'll be nothing to dobut sleep. "

"I think you haven't grasped the situation, Dal, " I said icily. "Therewill be plenty to do. There isn't a servant in the house!"

"No servants!" everybody cried at once. The Mercer girls stoppedgiggling. 

"Holy cats!" Max stopped in the act of hanging up his overcoat. "Do youmean--why, I can't shave myself! I'll cut my head off. "

"You'll do more than that, " I retorted grimly. "You will carry coal andtend fires and empty ash pans, and when you are not doing any of thosethings there will be pots and pans to wash and beds to make. "

Then there WAS a row. We had worked back to the den now, and I stood infront of the fireplace and let the storm beat around me, and triedto look perfectly cold and indifferent, and not to see Mr. Harbison'sshocked face. No wonder he thought them a lot of savages, browbeatingtheir hostess the way they did. 

"It's a fool thing anyhow, " Max Reed wound up, "to celebrate theanniversary of a divorce--especially--" Here he caught Jim's eye andstopped. But I had suddenly remembered. BELLA DOWN IN THE BASEMENT!

Could anything have been worse? And of course she would have hysteriaand then turn on me and blame me for it all. It all came over me at onceand overwhelmed me, while Anne was crying and saying she wouldn't cookif she starved for it, and Aunt Selina was taking off her wraps. I feltqueer all over, and I sat down suddenly. Mr. Harbison was looking at me, and he brought me a glass of wine. 

"It won't be so bad as you fear, " he said comfortingly. "There will beno danger once we are vaccinated, and many hands make light work. Theyare pretty raw now, because the thing is new to them, but by morningthey will be reconciled. "

"It isn't the work; it is something entirely different, " I said. And itwas. Bella and work could hardly be spoken in the same breath. 

If I had only turned her out as she deserved to be, when she first came, instead of allowing her to carry through the wretched farce about seeingTakahiro! Or if I had only run to the basement the moment the house wasquarantined, and got her out the areaway or the coal hole! And now timewas flying, and Aunt Selina had me by the arm, and any moment I expectedBella to pounce on us through the doorway and the whole situation toexplode with a bang. 

It was after eleven before they were rational enough to discuss ways andmeans, and, of course, the first thing suggested was that we all adjournbelow stairs and clean up after dinner. I could have slain Max Reed forthe notion, and the Mercer girls for taking him up. 

"Of course we will, " they said in a duet. "What a lark!" And theyactually began to pin up their dinner gowns. It was Jim who stoppedthat. 

"Oh, look here, you people, " he objected, "I'm not going to let you dothat. We'll get some servants in tomorrow. I'll go down and put out thelights. There will be enough clean dishes for breakfast. "

It was lucky for me that they started a new discussion then and thereabout who would get the breakfast. In the midst of the excitement Islipped away to carry the news to Bella. She was where I had left her, and she had made herself a cup of tea, and was very much at home, whichwas natural. 

"Do you know, " she said ominously, "that you have been away for twohours; and that I have gone through agonies of nervousness for fear JimWilson would come down and think I came here to see him?"

"No one would think that, Bella, " I soothed her. "Everybody knows youloathe him--Jim, too. " She looked at me over the edge of her cup. 

"I'll run along now, " she said, "since Takahiro isn't here. And if Jimhas any sense at all, he will clear out every maid in the house. I neversaw such a kitchen in all my life. Well, lead the way, Kit. I supposethey are deep in bridge, or roulette, or something. "

She was fixing her veil, and I saw I would have to tell her. Personally, I would much rather have told her the house was on fire. 

"Wait a minute, Bella, " I said. "You see, something queer has happened. You know this is the anniversary--well, you know what it is--and Jim wasawfully glum. So we thought we would come--"

"What are you driving at?" she demanded. "You are sea-green, Kit. What'sthe matter? You needn't think I mind because Jim has a jollification tocelebrate his divorce. "

"It--it was Takahiro--in the ambulance, " I blurted. "Smallpox. We--Bella, we are shut in, quarantined. "

She didn't faint. She just sat down and stared at me, and I stared backat her. Then a miserable alarm clock on the table suddenly went off likean explosion, and Bella began to laugh. I knew what that was--hysteria. She always had attacks like that when things went wrong. I was quitedespairing by that time; I hoped they would all hear her and comedownstairs and take her up and put her to bed like a Christian, so shecould giggle her soul out. But after a bit she quieted down and began tocry softly, and I knew the worst was over. I gave her a shake, and shewas so angry that she got over it altogether. 

"Kit, you are horrid, " she choked. "Don't you see what a position I amin? I am not going upstairs to face Anne and the rest of them. You canjust put me in the coal cellar. "

"Isn't there a window you could get through?" I asked desperately. "Locking the door doesn't shut up a whole house. "

Bella's courage revived at that, and she said yes, there were windows, plenty of them, only she didn't see how she could get out. And Isaid she would HAVE to get out, because I was playing Bella in theperformance, and I didn't care to have an understudy. Then the situationdawned on her, and she sat down and laughed herself weak in the knees. Of course she wanted to stay, then, and see the fun out. But I was firm;she would have to go, and I told her so. Things were complicated enoughwithout her. 

Well, we looked funny, no doubt, Bella in a Russian pony automobile coatover the black satin she had worn at the Clevelands' dinner, and I incream lace, the skirt gathered up from the kitchen floor, with Bella'sermine pelerine around my bare shoulders, and dishes and overturnedchairs everywhere. 

Bella knew more about the lower regions of her ex-home than I would havethought. She opened a door in a corner and led the way through a narrowhall past the refrigerating room, to a huge, cemented cellar, with afurnace in the center, and a half-dozen electric lights making it reallybrilliant. 

"Get a chair, " Bella said over her shoulder, excitedly. "I can get outeasily here, through the coal hole. Imagine my--"

But it was my turn to grip Bella. From behind the furnace were comingthe most terrible sounds, rasping noises that fairly frayed the silk ofmy nerves. We stood petrified for an instant. Then Bella laughed. "Theyare not all gone, " she said carefully. "Some one is asleep there. "

We tiptoed to where we could see around the furnace, and, sure enough, some one WAS asleep there. Only, it was not one of the servants; it wasa portly policeman, with a newspaper and an empty plate on the floor onone side, and a champagne bottle on the other. He had slid down in hischair, with his chin on his brass buttons, and his helmet had rolled adozen feet away. Bella had to clap her hand over her mouth. 

"Fairly caught!" she whispered. "Sartor Resartus, the arrester arrested. Oh, Jim and his flawless service!"

But after we got over our surprise, we saw the situation was serious. The policeman was threatening to awaken. Once he stopped snoring to yawnnoisily, and we beat a hasty retreat. Bella switched off the lights ina hurry and locked the door behind us. We hardly breathed until we wereback in the kitchen again, and everything quiet. And then Jimmy calledmy name from up above somewheres. 

"I am going to call him down, Bella, " I said firmly. "Let him help youout. I'm sure I don't see why I should have all this when the two ofyou--"

"Oh, no, no! Surely, Kit, you wouldn't be so cruel!" she whisperedpleadingly. "You know what he would think. He--oh, Kit, let them all getsettled for the night, and then come down, like a dear, and help me out. I know loads of ways--honestly I do. "

"If I leave you here, " I debated, "what about the policeman?"

"Never mind him"--frantically. "Listen! There's Jim up in the pantry. Run, for the sake of Heaven!"

So--I ran. At the top of the stairs I met Jimmy, very crumpled as toshirt-front and dejected as to face. 

"I've been hunting everywhere for you, " he said dismally. "I thought youhad added to the general merriment by falling downstairs and breakingyour neck. "

I went past him with my chin up. Now that I had time to think about it, I was furiously angry with him. 

"Kit!" he called after me appealingly, but I would not hear. Then headopted different tactics. He took advantage of my catching my foot inthe lace of my gown to pass me, and to stand with his back against thedoor. 

"You're not going until you hear me, Kit, " he declared miserably. "Inthe first place, for all you are down on me, is it my fault? Honestly, now IS IT MY FAULT?"

I refused to speak. 

"I was coming home to be miserable alone, " he went on, "and--oh, I knowyou meant well, Kit; but YOU asked all these crazy people here. "

"Perhaps you will give me credit for some things, " I said wearily. "Idid NOT give Takahiro smallpox, for instance, and--if you will permit meto mention the fact--Aunt Selina is not MY Aunt Selina. "

"That's what I wanted to speak to you about, " Jimmy went on wretchedly, trying not to look at me. "You see, when they were rowing so about whowould get the breakfast--I never saw such a lot of people; half ofthem never touch breakfast, but of course now they want all kinds ofthings--when they were talking, Aunt Selina said she knew YOU would getit, being the hostess, and responsible, besides knowing where thingsare kept. " He had fixed his eyes on the orchids, and he looked shrunken, actually shrunken. "I thought, " he finished, "you might give me a fewpointers now, and I could come down in the morning, and--and fuss upsomething, coffee and so on. I would say you did it! Oh, hang it all, Kit, why don't you say something?"

"What do you want me to say?" I demanded. "That I love to cook, and ofcourse I'll fix trays and carry them up in the morning to Anne Brownand Leila Mercer and the rest; and that I will have the shaving waterready--"

"I know what I'm going to do, " Jimmy said, with a sudden resolution. "Aunt Selina and her money can go to blazes. I am going right upstairsand tell her the truth, tell her who you are, what I am, and all therest of it. " He opened the door. 

"You'll do nothing of the kind, " I gasped, catching him in time. "Don'tyou dare, Jimmy Wilson! Why, what would they think of me? After lettingher call me Bella, and him--Jim, if Mr. Harbison ever learns thetruth--I--I will take poison. If we are going to be shut up heretogether, we will have to carry it on. I couldn't stand the disgrace. "

In spite of an heroic effort, Jim looked relieved. "They have beenhunting for the linen closet, " he said, more cheerfully, "and there willbe room enough, I think. Harbison and I will hang out in the studio;there are two couches there. I'm afraid you'll have to take Aunt Selina, Kit. "

"Certainly, " I said coldly. That was the way it was all along. Wheneverthere was something to do that no one else would undertake--anyunpleasant responsibility--that entire mongrel household turned with onegesture and pointed its finger at me! Well, it is over now, and I oughtnot to be bitter, considering everything. 

It was quite characteristic of that memorable evening (that is quitenovelesque, I think) that my interview with Jimmy should have asensational ending. He was terribly down, of course, and as I was tryingto pass him to get to the door, he caught my hand. 

"You're a girl in a thousand, Kit, " he said forlornly. "If I were not sodamnably, hopelessly, idiotically in love with--somebody else, I shouldbe crazy about you. "

"Don't be maudlin, " I retorted. "Would you mind letting my hand go?" Ifelt sure Bella could hear. 

"Oh, come now, Kit, " he implored, "we've always got along so well. It'sa shame to let a thing like this make us bad friends. Aren't you evergoing to forgive me?"

"Never, " I said promptly. "When I once get away, I don't want ever tosee you again. I was never so humiliated in my life. I loathe you!"

Then I turned around, and, of course, there was Aunt Selina with hereyes protruding until you could have knocked them off with a stick, andbeside her, very red and uncomfortable, Mr. Harbison!

"Bella!" she said in a shocked voice, "is that the way you speak to yourhusband! It is high time I came here, I think, and took a hand in thisaffair. "

"Oh, never mind, Aunt Selina, " Jim said, with a sheepish grin. "Kit--Bella is tired and nervous. This is a h--deuce of a situation. No--er--servants, and all that. "

But Aunt Selina did mind, and showed it. She pulled the unlucky Harbisonman through the door and closed it, and then stood glaring at both ofus. 

"Every little quarrel is an apple knocked from the tree of love, " sheannounced oratorically. 

"This was a very little quarrel, " Jim said, edging toward the door;"a--a green apple, Aunt Selina, a colicky little green apple. " But shewas not to be diverted. 

"Bella, " she said severely, "you said you loathed him. You didn't meanthat. "

"But I do!" I cried hysterically. "There isn't any word to tell howI--how I detest him. "

Then I swept past them all and flew to Bella's dressing room and lockedmyself in. Aunt Selina knocked until she was tired, then gave up andwent to bed. 

That was the night Anne Brown's pearl collar was stolen!

Chapter VI. A MIGHTY POOR JOKE

Of course, one knows that there are people who in a different grade ofsociety would be shoplifters and pickpockets. When they are restrainedby obligation or environment they become a little overkeen at bridge, or take the wrong sables, or stuff a gold-backed brush into a muff ata reception. You remember the ivory dressing set that Theodora Bucknellhad, fastened with fine gold chains? And the sensation it caused at theBucknell cotillion when Mrs. Van Zire went sweeping to her carriage withtwo feet of gold chain hanging from the front of her wrap?

But Anne's pearl collar was different. In the first place, instead ofthree or four hundred people, the suspicion had to be divided among ten. And of those ten, at least eight of us were friends, and the other twohad been vouched for by the Browns and Jimmy. It was a horrible mix-up. For the necklace was gone--there couldn't be any doubt of that--andalthough, as Dallas said, it couldn't get out of the house, still, therewere plenty of places to hide the thing. 

The worst of our trouble really originated with Max Reed, after all. For it was Max who made the silly wager over the telephone, with DickBagley. He bet five hundred even that one of us, at least, would breakquarantine within the next twenty-four hours, and, of course, thatsettled it. Dick told it around the club as a joke, and a man who ownsa newspaper heard him and called up the paper. Then the paper called upthe health office, after setting up a flaming scare-head, "Will MoneyFree Them? Board of Health versus Millionaire. "

It was almost three when the house settled down--nobody had any nightclothes, although finally, through Dallas, who gave them to Anne, whogave them to the rest, we got some things of Jimmy's--and I was stilldressed. The house was perfectly quiet, and, after listening carefully, I went slowly down the stairs. There was a light in the hall, andanother back in the dining room, and I got along without any trouble. But the pantry, where the stairs led down, was dark, and the wretchedswinging door would not stay open. 

I caught my skirt in the door as I went through, and I had to stop toloosen it. And in that awful minute I heard some one breathing justbeside me. I had stooped to my gown, and I turned my head withoutstraightening--I couldn't have raised myself to an erect posture, formy knees were giving way under me--and just at my feet lay the stillglowing end of a match!

I had to swallow twice before I could speak. Then I said sharply:

"Who's there?"

The man was so close it is a wonder I had not walked into him; his voicewas right at my ear. 

"I am sorry I startled you, " he said quietly. "I was afraid to speaksuddenly, or move, for fear I would do--what I have done. "

It was Mr. Harbison. 

"I--I thought you were--it is very late, " I managed to say, with drylips. "Do you know where the electric switch is?"

"Mrs. Wilson!" It was clear he had not known me before. "Why, no; don'tyou?"

"I am all confused, " I muttered, and beat a retreat into the diningroom. There, in the friendly light, we could at least see each other, and I think he was as much impressed by the fact that I had notundressed as I was by the fact that he HAD, partly. He wore a hideousdressing gown of Jimmy's, much too small, and his hair, parted andplastered down in the early evening, stood up in a sort of brown brushall over his head. He was trying to flatten it with his hands. 

"It must be three o'clock, " he said, with polite surprise, "and thehouse is like a barn. You ought not to be running around with your armsuncovered, Mrs. Wilson. Surely you could have called some of us. "

"I didn't wish to disturb any one, " I said, with distinct truth. 

"I suppose you are like me, " he said. "The novelty of the situation--andeverything. I got to thinking things over, and then I realized thestudio was getting cold, so I thought I would come down and take a lookat the furnace. I didn't suppose any one else would think of it. ButI lost myself in that pantry, stumbled against a half-open drawer, andnearly went down the dumb-waiter. " And, as if in judgment on me, atthat instant came two rather terrific thumps from somewhere below, and inarticulate words, shouted rather than spoken. It was uncanny, ofcourse, coming as it did through the register at our feet. Mr. Harbisonlooked startled. 

"Oh, by the way, " I said, as carelessly as I could. "In the excitement, I forgot to mention it. There is a policeman asleep in the furnace room. I--I suppose we will have to keep him now, " I finished as airily aspossible. 

"Oh, a policeman--in the cellar, " he repeated, staring at me, and hemoved toward the pantry door. 

"You needn't go down, " I said feverishly, with visions of Bella Knowlessitting on the kitchen table, surrounded by soiled dishes and all thecheerless aftermath of a dinner party. "Please don't go down. I--it'sone of my rules--never to let a stranger go down to the kitchen. I--I'mpeculiar--that way--and besides, it's--it's mussy. "

Bang! Crash! through the register pipe, and some language quitearticulate. Then silence. 

"Look here, Mrs. Wilson, " he said resolutely. "What do I care about thekitchen? I'm going down and arrest that policeman for disturbing thepeace. He will have the pipes down. "

"You must not go, " I said with desperate firmness. "He--he is probablyin a very dangerous state just now. We--I--locked him in. "

The Harbison man grinned and then became serious. 

"Why don't you tell me the whole thing?" he demanded. "You've been introuble all evening, and--you can trust me, you know, because I am astranger; because the minute this crazy quarantine is raised I am offto the Argentine Republic, " (perhaps he said Chili) "and because I don'tknow anything at all about you. You see, I have to believe what youtell me, having no personal knowledge of any of you to go on. Now tellme--whom have you hidden in the cellar, besides the policeman?"

There was no use trying to deceive him; he was looking straight into myeyes. So I decided to make the best of a bad thing. Anyhow, it was goingto require strength to get Bella through the coal hole with one arm andrestrain the policeman with the other. 

"Come, " I said, making a sudden resolution, and led the way down thestairs. 

He said nothing when he saw Bella, for which I was grateful. She wassitting at the table, with her arms in front of her, and her head buriedin them. And then I saw she was asleep. Her hat and veil were laidbeside her, and she had taken off her coat and draped it around her. Shehad rummaged out a cold pheasant and some salad, and had evidently hada little supper. Supper and a nap, while I worried myself gray-headedabout her!

"She--she came in unexpectedly--something about the butler, " I explainedunder my breath. "And--she doesn't want to stay. She is on bad termswith--with some of the people upstairs. You can see how impossible thesituation is. "

"I doubt if we can get her out, " he said, as if the situation were quiteordinary. "However, we can try. She seems very comfortable. It's a pityto rouse her. "

Here the prisoner in the furnace room broke out afresh. It soundedas though he had taken a lump of coal and was attacking the lock. Mr. Harbison followed the noise, and I could hear him arguing, not gently. 

"Another sound, " he finished, "and you won't get out of here at all, unless you crawl up the furnace pipe!"

When he came back, Bella was rousing. She lifted her head with her eyesshut and then opened them one at a time, blinked, and sat up. She didn'tsee him at first. 

"You wretch!" she said ungratefully, after she had yawned. "Do you knowwhat time it is? And that--" Then she saw Mr. Harbison and sat staringat him. 

"This is Mr. Harbison, " I said to her hastily. "He--he came with Anneand Dal and--he is shut in, too. "

By that time Bella had seen how handsome he was, and she took a hair pinout of her mouth, and arched her eyebrows, which was always Bella's bestpose. 

"I am Miss Knowles, " she said sweetly (of course, the court had givenher back her name), "and I stopped in tonight, thinking the housewas empty, to see about a--a butler. Unfortunately, the house wasquarantined just at that time, and--here I am. Surely there can not beany harm in helping me to get out?" (Pleading tone. ) "I have not beenexposed to any contagion, and in the exhausted state of my health theconfinement would be positively dangerous. "

She rolled her eyes at him, and I could see she was making animpression. Of course she was free. She had a perfect right to marryagain, but I will say this: Bella is a lot better looking by electriclight than she is the next morning. 

The upshot of it was that the gentleman who built bridges and lookeddown on society from a lofty, lonely pinnacle agreed to help one of themost gleaming members of the aforesaid society to outwit the law. 

It took about fifteen minutes to quiet the policeman. Nobody ever knewwhat Mr. Harbison did to him, but for twenty-four hours he was quitetractable. He changed after that, but that comes later in the story. Anyhow, the Harbison man went upstairs and came down with a Bagdadcurtain and a cushion to match, and took them into the furnace room, and came out and locked the door behind him, and then we were ready forBella's escape. 

But there were four special officers and three reporters watching thehouse, as a result of Max Reed's idiocy. Once, after trying all theother windows and finding them guarded, we discovered a little bit of ahole in an out-of-the-way corner that looked like a ventilator and wascovered with a heavy wire screen. No prisoners ever dug their way out ofa dungeon with more energy than that with which we attached that screen, hacking at it with kitchen knives, whispering like conspirators, beingscratched with the ragged edges of the wire, frozen with the cold airone minute and boiling with excitement the next. And when the wire wascut, and Bella had rolled her coat up and thrust it through and wasstanding on a chair ready to follow, something outside that had lookedlike a barrel moved, and said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you. It would be certain to be undignified, and probably it would beunpleasant--later. "

We coaxed and pleaded and tried to bribe, and that happened, as itturned out, to be one of the worst things we had to endure. For thewhole conversation came out the next afternoon in the paper, with themost awful drawings, and the reporter said it was the flashing of thejewels we wore that first attracted his attention. And that brings meback to the robbery. 

For when we had crept back to the kitchen, and Bella was fumblingfor her handkerchief to cry into and the Harbison man was trying toapologize for the language he had used to the reporter, and I was on theverge of a nervous chill--well, it was then that Bella forgot all aboutcrying and jumped and held out her arm. 

"My diamond bracelet!" she screeched. "Look, I've lost it. "

Well, we went over every inch of that basement, until I knew every crackin the flooring, every spot on the cement. And Bella was nasty, and saidthat she had never seen that part of the house in such condition, andthat if I had acted like a sane person and put her out, when she had nobusiness there at all, she would have had her freedom and her bracelet, and that if we were playing a joke on her (as if we felt like joking!)we would please give her the bracelet and let her go and die in acorner; she felt very queer. 

At half-past four o'clock we gave up. 

"It's gone, " I said. "I don't believe you wore it here. No one couldhave taken it. There wasn't a soul in this part of the house, except thepoliceman and he's locked in. "

At five o'clock we put her to sleep in the den. She was in a fearfultemper, and I was glad enough to be able to shut the door on her. TomHarbison--that was his name--helped me to creep upstairs, and wantedto get me a glass of ale to make me sleep. But I said it would be of nouse, as I had to get up and get the breakfast. The last thing he saidwas that the policeman seemed above the average in intelligence, andperhaps we could train him to do plain cooking and dishwashing. 

I did not go to sleep at once. I lay on the chintz-covered divan inBella's dressing room and stared at the picture of her with the violetsunderneath. I couldn't see what there was about Bella to inspire suchundying devotion, but I had to admit that she had looked handsome thatnight, and that the Harbison man had certainly been impressed. 

At seven o'clock Jimmy Wilson pounded at my door, and I could havechoked him joyfully. I dragged myself to the door and opened it, andthen I heard excited voices. Everybody seemed to be up but Aunt Selina, and they were all talking at once. 

Anne Brown was in the corner of the group, waving her hands, whileDallas was trying to hook the back of her gown with one hand and hold ablanket around himself with the other. No one was dressed except Anne, and she had been up for an hour, looking in shoes and under the cornersof rugs and around the bed clothing for her jeweled collar. When she sawme she began all over again. 

"I had it on when I went into my room, " she declared, "and I put it onthe dressing table when I undressed. I meant to put it under my pillow, but I forgot. And I didn't sleep well; I was awake half the night. Wasn't I, Dal? Then, when the clock downstairs in the hall was chimingfive, something roused me, and I sat up in bed. It was still dark, but Ipinched Dal and said there was somebody in the room. You remember that, don't you, Dal?"

"I thought you had nightmare, " he said sheepishly. 

"I lay still for ages, it seemed to me, and then--the door into thehall closed. I heard the catch click. I turned on the light over the bedthen, and the room was empty. I thought of my collar, and although itseemed ridiculous, with the house sealed as it is, and all of us friendsfor years--well, I got up and looked, and it was gone!"

No one spoke for an instant. It WAS a queer situation, for the collarwas gone; Anne's red eyes showed it was true. And there we stood, everyone of us a miserable picture of guilt, and tried to look innocent anddebonair and unsuspicious. Finally Jim held up his hand and signifiedthat he wanted to say something. 

"It's like this, " he said, "until this thing is cleared up, for Heaven'ssake, let's try to be sane! If every fellow thinks the other fellowdid it, this house will be a nice little hell to live in. And ifanybody"--here he glared around--"if anybody has got funny and is hidingthose jewels, I want to say that he'd better speak up now. Later, itwon't be so easy for him. It's a mighty poor joke. "

But nobody spoke. 

Chapter VII. WE MAKE AN OMELET

It was Betty Mercer who said she was hungry, and got us switched fromthe delicate subject of which was the thief to the quite as pressingsubject of which was to be cook. Aunt Selina had slept quietly throughthe whole thing--we learned afterward that she customarily slept on herleft side, which was on her good ear. We gathered in the Dallas Browns'room, and Jimmy proposed a plan. 

"We can have anything sent in that we want, " he suggested speciously, "and if Dal doesn't make good with the city fathers, you girls canget some clothes anyhow. Then, we can have dinner sent from one of thehotels. "

"Why not all the meals?" Max suggested. "I hope you're not going to besmall about things, Jimmy. "

"It ought to be easy, " Jim persisted, ignoring the remark, "for ninereasonably intelligent people to boil eggs and make coffee, which is allwe need for breakfast, with some fruit. "

"Nine of us!" Dallas said wickedly, looking at Tom Harbison, who wasout of earshot, "Why nine of us? I thought Kit here, otherwise known asBella, was going to show off her housewifely skill. "

It ended, however, with Mr. Harbison writing out a lot of slips, cook, scullery-maid, chamber-maid, parlor-maid, furnace-man, and butler, andas that left two people over--we didn't count Aunt Selina--he addedanother furnace-man and a trained nurse. Betty Mercer drew the trainednurse slip, and, of course, she was delighted. It seems funny now tolook back and think what a dreadful time she really had, for Aunt Selinatook the grippe, you know, that very day. 

It was fate that I should go back to that awful kitchen, for of coursemy slip said "cook. " Mr. Harbison was butler, and Max and Dal got thefurnace, although neither of them had ever been nearer to a bucket ofcoal than the coupons on mining stock. Anne got the bedrooms, and Leilawas parlor-maid. It was Jimmy who got the scullery work, but he wasquite crushed by this time, and did not protest at all. 

Max was in a very bad temper; I suppose he had not had enough sleep--noone had. But he came over while the lottery was going on and stood overme and demanded unpleasantly, in a whisper, that I stop masquerading asanother man's wife and generally making a fool of myself--which is theway he put it. And I knew in my heart that he was right, and I hated himfor it. 

"Why don't you go and tell him--them?" I asked nastily. No one waspaying any attention to us. "Tell them that, to be obliging, I havenearly drowned in a sea of lies; tell them that I am not only notmarried, but that I never intend to marry; tell them that we are a lotof idiots with nothing better to do than to trifle with strangers withinour gates, people who build--I mean, people that are worth two to ourone! Run and tell them. "

He looked at me for a minute, then he turned on his heel and left me. Itlooked as though Max might be going to be difficult. 

While I was improvising an apron out of a towel, and Anne was pinning asheet into a kimono, so she could take off her dinner gown and still beproper, Dallas harked back to the robbery. 

"Ann put the collar on the table there, " he said. "There's no mistakeabout that. I watched her do it, for I remember thinking it was the solereminder I had that Consolidated Traction ever went above thirty-nine. "

Max was looking around the room, examining the window locks andwhistling between his teeth. He was in disgrace with every one, for bythat time it was light enough to see three reporters with cameras acrossthe street waiting for enough sun to snap the house, and everybody knewthat it was Max and his idiotic wager that had done it. He had made twoor three conciliatory remarks, but no one would speak to him. His anticswere so queer, however, that we were all watching him, and when he hadfelt over the rug with his hands, and raised the edges, and tried tolift out the chair seats, and had shaken out Dal's shoes (he said peopleoften hid things and then forgot about it), he made a proposition. 

"If you will take that infernal furnace from around my neck, I'llundertake either to find the jewels or to show up the thief, " hesaid quietly. And of course, with all the people in the house undersuspicion, every one had to hail the suggestion with joy, and to offerhis assistance, and Jimmy had to take Max's share of the furnace. Sothey took the scullery slip downstairs to the policeman, and gave JimMax's share of the furnace. (Yes, I had broken the policeman to themgently. Of course, Anne said at once that he was the thief, but theyfound him tucked in and sound asleep with his back against the furnace. )

"In the first place, " Max said, standing importantly in the middle ofthe room, "we retired between two and three--nearer three. So thetheft occurred between three and five, when Anne woke up. Was your doorlocked, Dal?"

"No. The door into the hall was, but the door into the dressing room wasopen, and we found the door from there into the hall open this morning. "

"From three until five, " Max repeated. "Was any one out of his roomduring that time?"

"I was, " said Tom Harbison promptly, from the foot of the bed. "I wasprowling all around somewhere about four, searching"--he glanced atme--"for a drink of water. But as I don't know a pearl from a glassbead, I hope you exonerate me. "

Everybody laughed and said, "Of course, " and "Sure, old man, " andchanged the subject quickly. 

While that excitement was on, I got Jim to one side and told him aboutBella. His good-natured face was radiant at first. 

"I suppose she DID come to see Takahiro, eh, Kit?" he asked delicately. "She didn't say anything about me?"

"Nothing good. She said the house was in a disgraceful condition, " Isaid heartlessly. "And her diamond bracelet was stolen while she tooka nap on the kitchen table"--he groaned--"and--oh, Jim, you are sucha goose! If I could only manage my own affairs the way I could myfriends'! She's too sure of you, Jimmy. She knows you adore her, and--how brutal could you be, Jim?"

"Fair, " he said. "I may have undiscovered depths of brutality that Ihave never had occasion to use. However, I might try. Why?"

"Listen, Jim, " I urged. "It was always Bella who did things here; shemanaged the house, she tyrannized over her friends, and she bullied you. Yes, she did. Now she's here, without your invitation, and she has tostay. It's your turn to bully, to dictate terms, to be coldly civil orpolitely rude. Make her furious at you. If she is jealous, so much thebetter. "

"How far would you sacrifice yourself on the altar of friendship?" heasked. 

"You may pay me all the attention you like, in public, " I replied, andafter we shook hands we went together to Bella. 

There was an ominous pause when we went into the den. Bella was sittingby the register, with her furs on, and after one glance over hershoulder at us, she looked away again without speaking. 

"Bella, " Jim said appealingly. And then I pinched his arm, and he drewhimself up and looked properly outraged. 

"Bella, " he said, coldly this time, "I can't imagine why you have putyourself in this ridiculous position, but since you have--"

She turned on him in a fury. 

"Put MYSELF in this position!"

She was frantic. "It's a plot, a wretched trick of yours, thisquarantine, to keep me here. "

Jim gasped, but I gave him a warning glance, and he swallowed hard. 

"On the contrary, " he said, with maddening quiet, "I would be the lastperson in the world to wish to perpetuate an indiscretion of yours. Forit was hardly discreet, was it, to visit a bachelor establishment aloneat ten o'clock at night? As far as my plotting to keep you here isconcerned, I assure you that nothing could be further from my mind. Ourpaths were to be two parallel lines that never touch. " He looked at mefor approval, and Bella was choking. 

"You are worse that I ever thought you, " she stormed. "I thought youwere only a--a fool. Now I know you--for a brute!"

Well, it ended by Jim's graciously permitting Bella to remain--therebeing nothing else to do--and by his magnanimously agreeing to keep herreal identity from Aunt Selina and Mr. Harbison, and to break the newsof her presence to Anne and the rest. It created a sensation besidewhich Anne's pearls faded away, although they came to the front againsoon enough. 

Jim broke the news at once, gathering everybody but Harbison and AuntSelina in the upper hall. He was palpitatingly nervous, but he tried tocarry it off with a high hand. 

"It's unfortunate, " he said, looking around the circle of faces, eachone frozen with amazement, and just a suspicion, perhaps of incredulity. "It's particularly unfortunate for her. You all know how high-strungshe is, and if the papers should get hold of it--well, we'll all have tomake it as easy as we can for her. "

With Jim's eyes on them, they all swallowed the butler story without agulp. But Anne was indignant. 

"It's like Bella, " she snapped. "Well, she has made her bed and she canlie on it. I'm sure I shan't make it for her. But if you want to know myopinion, Mr. Harbison may be a fool, but you can't ram two Bellas, bothNEE Knowles, down Miss Caruthers' throat with a stick. "

We had not thought of that before and every one looked blank. Finally, however, Jim said Bella's middle name was Constantia, and we decided tocall her that. But it turned out afterward that nobody could rememberit in a hurry, and generally when we wanted to attract her attention, wewalked across the room and touched her on the shoulder. It was quickerand safer. 

The name decided, we went downstairs in a line to welcome Bella, to tryto make her feel at home, and to forget her deplorable situation. Leilahad worked herself into a really sympathetic frame of mind. 

"Poor dear, " she said, on the way down. "Now don't grin, anybody, justbe cordial and glad to see her. I hope she doesn't cry; you know thespells she takes. "

We stopped outside the door, and everybody tried to look cheerful andsympathetic, and not grinny--which was as hard as looking as if we hadhad a cup of tea--and then Jim threw the door open and we filed in. 

Bella was comfortably reading by the fire. She had her feet up on astool and a pillow behind her head. She did not even look at us for aminute; then she merely glanced up as she turned a page. 

"Dear me, " she said mockingly, "what a lot of frumps you all are! I hadhoped it was some one with my breakfast. "

Then she went on reading. As Leila said afterward, that kind of personOUGHT to be divorced. 

Aunt Selina came down just then and I left everybody trying to explainBella's presence to her, and fled to the kitchen. The Harbison manappeared while I was sitting hopelessly in front of the gas range, andshowed me about it. 

"I don't know that I ever saw one, " he said cheerfully, "but I know thetheory. Likewise, by the same token, this tea kettle, set on the flame, will boil. That is not theory, however, that is early knowledge. 'Polly, put the kettle on; we'll all take tea. ' Look at that, Mrs. Wilson. Ididn't fight bacilli with boiled water at Chickamauga for nothing. "

And then he let out the policeman and brought him into the kitchen. Hewas a large man, and his face was a curious mixture of amazement, alarmand dignity. No doubt we did look queer, still in parts of our eveningclothes and I in the white silk and lace petticoat that belonged undermy gown, with a yellow and black pajama coat of Jimmy's as a sort ofbreakfast jacket. 

"This is Officer Flannigan, " Mr. Harbison said. "I explained ourunfortunate position earlier in the morning, and he is prepared toaccept our hospitality. Flannigan, every person in this house has gotto work, as I also explained to you. You are appointed dishwasher andscullery maid. "

The policeman looked dazed. Then, slowly, like dawn over a sleepinglake, a light of comprehension grew in his face. 

"Sure, " he said, laying his helmet on the table. "I'll be glad to bedoing anything I can to help. Me and Mrs. Wilson--we used to be friends. It's many the time I've opened the carriage door for her, and she withher head in the air, and for all that, the pleasant smile. When any onearound her was having a party and wanted a special officer, it was Mrs. Wilson that always said, Get Flannigan, Officer Timothy Flannigan. He'syour man. '"

My heart had been going lower and lower. So he knew Bella, and he knew Iwas not Bella, although he had not grasped the fact that I was usurpingher place. The odious Harbison man sat on the table and swung his feet. 

"I wonder if you know, " he said, looking around him, "how good it isto see a white woman so perfectly at home in a civilized kitchen again, after two years of food cooked by a filthy Indian squaw over a portablesheet-iron stove!"

SO PERFECTLY AT HOME? I stood in the middle of the room and staredaround at the copper things hanging up and the rows of blue and whitecrockery, and the dozens and hundreds of complicated-looking utensils, whose names I had never even heard, and I was dazed. I tried with someshow of authority to instruct Flannigan about gathering up the soiledthings, and, after listening in puzzled silence for a minute, hestripped off his blue coat with a tolerant smile. 

"Lave em to me, miss, " he said. The "miss" passed unnoticed. "I mayn'tgive em a Turkish bath, which is what you are describin', but I'll getthe grease off all right. I always clean up while the missus is in bedwith a young un. "

He rolled up his sleeves, found a brown checked gingham apron behindthe door, and tied it around his neck with the ease of practice. Thenhe cleared off the plates, eating what appealed to him as he did so, andstopping now and again for a deep-throated chuckle. 

"I'm thinkin', " he said once, stopping with a dish in the air, "what adeuce of a noise there will be when the vaccination doctor comes aroundthis mornin'. In a week every one of us will be nursin' a sore arm orwalkin' on one leg, beggin' your pardon, miss. The last time the forcewas vaccinated, I asked to be done behind me ear; I needed me legs and Ineeded me arms, but didn't need me head much!"

He threw his head back and laughed. Mr. Harbison laughed. Oh, we werevery cheerful! And that awful stove stared at me, and the kettle beganto hum, and Aunt Selina sent down word that she was not well, and wouldlike some omelet on her tray. Omelet!

I knew that it was made of eggs, but that was the extent of myknowledge. I muttered an excuse and ran upstairs to Anne, but she wasstill sniffling over her necklace, and said she didn't know anythingabout omelets and didn't care. Food would choke her. Neither of theMercer girls knew either, and Bella, who was still reading in the den, absolutely declined to help. 

"I don't know, and I wouldn't tell you if I did. You can get yourselfout, as you got yourself in, " she said nastily. "The simplest thing, ifyou don't mind my suggesting it, is to poison the coffee and kill thelot of us. Only, if you decide to do it, let me know; I want to livejust long enough to see Jimmy Wilson WRITHE!"

Bella is the kind of person who gets on one's nerves. She finds agrievance and hugs it; she does ridiculous things and blames otherpeople. And she flirts. 

I went downstairs despondently, and found that Mr. Harbison haddiscovered some eggs and was standing helplessly staring at them. 

"Omelet--eggs. Eggs--omelet. That's the extent of my knowledge, " hesaid, when I entered. "You'll have to come to my assistance. "

It was then that I saw the cook book. It was lying on a shelf beside theclock, and while Mr. Harbison had his back turned I got it down. It wasquite clear that the domestic type of woman was his ideal, and I didnot care to outrage his belief in me. So I took the cook book into thepantry and read the recipe over three times. When I came back I knew itby heart, although I did not understand it. 

"I will tell you how, " I said with a great deal of dignity, "and sinceyou want to help, you may make it yourself. "

He was delighted. 

"Fine!" he said. "Suppose you give me the idea first. Then we'll go overit slowly, bit by bit. We'll make a big fluffy omelet, and if the othersaren't around, we'll eat it ourselves. "

"Well, " I said, trying to remember exactly, "you take two eggs--"

"Two!" he repeated. "Two eggs for ten people!"

"Don't interrupt me, " I said irritably. "If--if two isn't enough we canmake several omelets, one after the other. "

He looked at me with admiration. 

"Who else but you would have thought of that!" he remarked. "Well, hereare two eggs. What next?"

"Separate them, " I said easily. No, I didn't know what it meant. I hopedhe would; I said it as casually as I could, and I did not look at him. Iknew he was staring at me, puzzled. 

"Separate them!" he said. "Why, they aren't fastened together!" Then helaughed. "Oh, yes, of course!" When I looked he had put one at each endof the table. "Afraid they'll quarrel, I suppose, " he said. "Well, nowthey're separated. "

"Then beat. "

"First separate, then beat!" he repeated. "The author of that cook bookmust have had a mean disposition. What's next? Hang them?" He looked upat me with his boyish smile. 

"Separate and beat, " I repeated. If I lost a word of that recipe I wasgone. It was like saying the alphabet; I had to go to the beginningevery time mentally. 

"Well, " he reflected, "you can't beat an egg, no matter how cruel youmay be, unless you break it first. " He picked up an egg and looked atit. "Separate!" he reflected. "Ah--the white from the--whatever youcooking experts call it--the yellow part. "

"Exactly!" I exclaimed, light breaking on me. "Of course. I KNEW youwould find it out. " Then back to the recipe--"beat until well mixed;then fold in the whites. "

"Fold?" he questioned. "It looks pretty thin to fold, doesn't it?I--upon my word, I never heard of folding an egg. Are you--but of courseyou know. Please come and show me how. "

"Just fold them in, " I said desperately. "It isn't difficult. " Andbecause I was so transparent a fraud and knew he must find me out then, I said something about butter, and went into the pantry. That's thetrouble with a lie; somebody asks you to tell one as a favor to somebodyelse, and the first thing you know, you are having to tell a thousand, and trying to remember the ones you have told so you won't contradictyourself, and the very person you have tried to help turns on you andreproaches you for being untruthful! I leaned my elbows despondentlyon the shelf of the kitchen pantry, with the feet of a guard visiblethrough the high window over my head, and waited for Mr. Harbison tocome in and demand that I fold a raw egg, and discover that I didn'tknow anything about cooking, and was just as useless as all the others. 

He came. He held the bowl out to me and waved a fork in triumph. 

"I have solved it, " he said. "Or, rather, Flannigan and I have solvedit. The mixture awaits the magic touch of the cook. "

I honestly thought I could do the rest. It was only to be put in a panand browned, and then in the oven three minutes. And I did it properly, but for two things: I should have greased the pan (but this was thebook's fault; it didn't say) and I should have lighted the oven. Thelatter, however, was Mr. Harbison's fault as much as mine, and I had witenough to lay it to absent-mindedness on the part of both of us. 

After that, Aunt Selina or no Aunt Selina, we decided to have boiledeggs, and Mr. Harbison knew how to cook them. He put them in thetea kettle and then went to look at the furnace. And Officer TimothyFlannigan ground the coffee and gave his opinion of the board of healthin no stinted terms. As for me, I burned my fingers and the toast, andfelt myself growing hot and cold, for I was going to be found out assoon as Flannigan grasped the situation. 

Then, of course, I did the thing that caused me so much trouble later. I put down the toaster--at least the Harbison man said it was atoaster--and went over and stood in front of the policeman. 

"I don't suppose you will understand--exactly, " I said, "but--but ifanything occurs to--to make you think I am not--that things are not whatthey seem to be--I mean, what I say they are--you will understand thatit is a joke, won't you? A joke, you know. "

Yes, that was what I said. I know it sounds like a raving delirium, but when Max came down and squizzled some bacon, as he said, and toldFlannigan about the robbery, and how, whether it was a joke or deadlyearnest, somebody in the house had taken Anne's pearls, that wretchedpoliceman winked at me solemnly over Max's shoulder. Oh, it was awful!

And, to add to my discomfort, the most unpleasant ideas WOULD obtrudethemselves. WHAT was Mr. Harbison doing on the first floor of the housethat night? Ice water, he had said. But there had been plenty of waterin the studio! And he had told me it was the furnace. 

Mr. Harbison came back in a half hour, and I remembered the eggs. Wefished them out of the tea kettle, and they were perfectly hard, but weate them. 

The doctor from the board of health came that morning and vaccinated us. There was a great deal of excitement, and Aunt Selina was done on thearm. As she did not affect evening clothes this was entirely natural, but later on in the week, when the wretched things began to take, nobodydared to limp, and Leila made a terrible break by wearing a bandage onher left arm, after telling Aunt Selina that she had been vaccinated onthe right. 

Chapter VIII. CORRESPONDENTS' DEPARTMENT

The following letters were found in the house post box after the liftingof the quarantine, and later were presented to me by their writers, bound in white kid (the letters, not the authors, of course). 

FROM THOMAS HARBISON, LATE ENGINEER OF BRIDGES, PERUVIAN TRUNK LINES, SOUTH AMERICA, TO HENRY LLEWELLYN, CARE OF UNION NITRATE COMPANY, IQUIQUE, CHILI. 

Dear Old Man:

I think I was fully a week trying to drive out of my mind my lastglimpse of you with your sickly grin, pretending to be tickled to piecesthat the only white man within two hundred miles of your shack wasgoing on a holiday. You old bluffer! I used to hang over the rail of thesteamer, on the way up, and see you standing as I left you beside thecar with its mule and the Indian driver, and behind you a million milesof soul-destroying pampa. Never mind, Jack; I sent yesterday by mailsteamer the cigarettes, pipes and tobacco, canned goods and pokerchips. Put in some magazines, too, and the collars. Don't know about theties--guess it won't matter down there. 

Nothing happened on the trip. One of the engines broke down three daysout, and I spent all my time below decks for forty-eight hours. Chiefengineer raving with D. T. 's. Got the engine fixed in record time, andhaven't got my hands clean yet. It was bully. 

With this I send the papers, which will tell you how I happen to behere, and why I have leisure to write you three days after landing. Ifthe situation were not so ridiculous, it would be maddening. Here Iam, off for a holiday and congratulating myself that I am foot free andheart free--yes, my friend, heart free--here I am, shut in the houseof a man I never saw until last night, and wouldn't care if I neversaw again, with a lot of people who never heard of me, who are almostequally vague about South America, who play as hard at bridge as I everworked at building one (forgive this, won't you? The novelty has goneto my head), and who belong to the very class of extravagant, luxury-loving, non-producing parasites (isn't that what we called them?)that you and I used to revile from our lofty Andean pinnacle. 

To come down to earth: here we are, six women and five men, includinga policeman, not a servant in the house, and no one who knows how to doanything. They are really immensely interesting, these people; theyall know each other very well, and it is "Jimmy" here, and "Dal"there--Dallas Brown, who went to India with me, you remember my speakingof him--and they are good natured, too, except at meal times. The littlehostess, Mrs. Wilson, took over the cooking, and although luncheon wasbetter than breakfast, the food still leaves much to the imagination. 

I wish you could see this Mrs. Wilson, Hal. You would change a whole lotof your ideas. She is a thoroughbred, sure enough, and of course someof her beauty is the result of the exquisite care about which you andI--still from our Andean pinnacle--used to rant. But the fact is, she ismore than that. She has fire, and pluck, no end. If you could have seenher this morning, standing in front of a cold kitchen range, determinedto conquer it, and had seen the tilt of her chin when I offered to takeover the cooking--you needn't grin; I can cook, and you know it--youwould understand what I mean. It was so clear that she was paralyzedwith fright at the idea of getting breakfast, and equally clear thatshe meant to do it. By the way, I have learned that her name was McNairbefore she married this would-be artist, Wilson, and that she is adaughter of the McNair who financed the Callao branch!

I have not met the others so intimately. There are two sisters namedMercer, inclined to be noisy--they are playing roulette in the nextroom now. One is small and dark, almost Hebraic in type, named Leila andcalled Lollie. The other, larger, very blonde and languishing, and witha decided preference for masculine society, even, saving the mark, mine! Dallas Brown's wife, good looking, smokes cigarettes when I am notaround--they all do, except Mrs. Wilson. 

Then there is a maiden aunt, who is ill today with grippe andexcitement, and a Miss Knowles, who came for a moment last night tosee Mrs. Wilson, was caught in the quarantine (see papers), and, afterhiding all night in the basement, is sulking all day in her room. Herpresence created an excitement out of all proportion to the apparentcause. 

From the fact that I have reason to know that my artist host and hisbeautiful wife are on bad terms, and from the significant glances withwhich the announcement of Miss Knowles' presence was met, the state ofaffairs seems rather clear. Wilson impresses me as a spineless sort, anyhow, and when the lady of the basement shut herself away from therest today and I happened on "Jimmy, " as they call him, pleading withher through the door, I very nearly kicked him down the stairs. Oh, yes, I'll keep out, right enough; it isn't my affair. 

By the way, after the quarantine and with the policeman locked in thefurnace room, a pearl necklace and a diamond bracelet were stolen! Justten of us to divide the suspicion! Upon my word, Hal, it's the queerestsituation I ever heard of. Which of us did it? I make a guess that nota few of us are fools, but which is the knave? The worst of it is, I amthe only unaccredited member of the household!

This is more scandal than I ever wrote in my life. Lay it tocircumscribed environment, and the lack of twenty miles over thepampa before breakfast. We have all been vaccinated, and the officiousgentlemen from the board of health have taken their grins and theirformaldehyde and gone. Ye gods, how we cough!

The Carlton order will go through all right, I think. Phoned him thismorning. If it does, old man, we will take a month in September andexplore the Mercator property. 

Do you know, Hal, I have been thinking lately that you and I stick tooclose to the grind. Business is right enough, but what's the use ofspending one's best years succeeding in everything except the thingsthat are worth while? I'll be thirty sooner than I care to say, and--oh, well, you won't understand. You'll sit down there, with the SouthernCross and the rest of the infernal astronomical galaxy looking down onyou, and the Indians chanting in the village, and you will think I havegrown sentimental. I have not. You and I down there have been looking atthe world through the reverse end of the glass. It's a bully old world, Hal, and this is God's part of it. 

Burn this letter after you read it; I suspect it is covered with germs. Well, happy days, old man. 

Yours, Tom

P. S. By the way, can't you spare some of the Indian pottery you pickedup at Callao? I told Mrs. Wilson about it, and she was immenselyinterested. Send it to this address. Can you get it to the nextsteamer?--T. 

FROM MAXWELL REED TO RICHARD BURTON BAGLEY, UNIVERSITY CLUB, NEW YORK. 

Dear Dick:

Enclosed find my check for five hundred, as per wager. Possibly you werewithin your rights in protecting your bet in the manner you chose, butwhile I do not wish to be offensive, your reporters are damnably so. 

Yours, Maxwell Reed

FROM OFFICER FLANNIGAN TO MRS. MAGGIE FLANNIGAN, ERIN STREET. 

Dear Maggie:

As soon as you receive this, go down to Mac and tell him the story as Itell you hear. Tell him I was walkin my beat, and I'd been afther seeinJimmy Alverini about doin the right thing for Mac on Monday, at thepoles, when I seen a man hangin suspicious around this house, which isMr. Wilson's, on Ninety-fifth. And, of coorse, afther chasin the man amile or more, I lose him, which was not my fault. So I go back to theWilson house, and tell them to be careful about closin up fer thenight, and while I'm standin in the hall, with all the swells around me, sparklin with jewels, the board of health sends a man to lock us all in, because the Jap thats been waiter has took the smallpox and gone to thehospitle. I stood me ground. I sez, sez I, you cant shtop an officer inpursute of his duty. I rafuse to be shut in. Be shure to tell Mac that. 

So here I am, and like to be for a month. Tell Mac theres four votesshut up here, and I can get them for him, if he can stop this monkeybusiness. 

Then go over to the Dago Church on Webster Avenue and put a dollar inSaint Anthony's box. He'll see me out of this scrape, right enough. Doit at once. Now remember, go to Mac first; maybe you can get the dollarfrom him, and mind what you tell him. 

Your husband, Tim Flannigan

FROM ME TO MOTHER--MRS. THEODORE McNAIR, HOTEL HAMILTON, BERMUDA. 

Dearest Mother:

I hope you will get this before you read the papers, and when you DOread them, you are not to get excited and worried. I am as well as canbe, and a great deal safer than I ever remember to have been in my life. We are quarantined, a lot of us, in Jim Wilson's house, because hisirreproachable Jap did a very reproachable thing--took smallpox. Nowread on before you get excited. HIS ROOM HAS BEEN FUMIGATED, and we havebeen vaccinated. I am well and happy. I can't be killed in a railwaywreck or smashed when the car skids. Unless I drown myself in my bath, or jump through a window, positively nothing can happen to me. So gatherup all your maternal anxieties and cast them to the Bermuda sharks. 

Anne Brown is here--see the papers for list--and if she can not playpropriety, Jimmy's Aunt Selina can. In fact, she doesn't play at it; sheworks. I have telephoned Lizette for some clothes--enough for a coupleof weeks, although Dallas promises to get us out sooner. Now, dear, dogo ahead and have a nice time, and on no account come home. You couldonly have the carriage to stop in front of the house, and wave to methrough a window. 

Mother, I want you to do something for me. You know who is down there, and--this is awfully delicate, Mumsy--but he's a nice boy, and I thoughtI liked him. I guess you know he has been rather attentive. Now, IDO like him, Mumsy, but not the way I thought I did, and I want youto--very gently, of course--to discourage him a little. You know howI mean. He's a dear boy, but I am so tired of people who don't knowanything but horses and motors. 

And, oh, yes, --do you remember a girl named Lucille Mellon who was atschool with you in Rome? And that she married a man named Harbison?Well, her son is here! He builds railroads and bridges and things, andhe even built himself an automobile down in South America, because hecouldn't afford to buy one, and burned wood in it! Wood! Think of it!

I wired father in Chicago for fear he would come rushing home. Thepicture in the paper of the face at the basement window is supposed tobe Mr. Harbison, but of course it isn't any more like him than mine islike me. 

Anne Brown mislaid her pearl collar when she took it off last night, and has fussed herself into a sick headache. She declares it was stolen!Some of the people are playing bridge, Betty Mercer is doing a cakewalk to the RHAPSODIE HONGROISE--Jim has no every-day music--andthe telephone is ringing. We have received enough flowers for afuneral--somebody sent Lollie a Gates Ajar, only with the gates shut. 

There are no servants--think of it, Mumsy. I wish you had made me learnto cook. Mr. Harbison has shown me a little--he was a soldier in theSpanish War--but we girls are a terribly ignorant lot, Mumsy, about thereal things of life. 

Now, don't worry. It is more sport than camping in the Adirondacks, andnot nearly so damp. 

Your loving daughter, Katherine. 

P. S. --South America must be wonderful. Why can't we put the Gadfly incommission, and take a coasting trip this summer? It is a shame to own ayacht and never use it. K. 

THIS NOTE, EVIDENTLY DELIVERED BY MESSENGER, WAS FOUND AMONG OTHERLITTER IN THE VESTIBULE AFTER THE LIFTING OF THE QUARANTINE. 

Mr. Alex Dodds, City Editor, Mail and Star:

Dear D. --Can't get a picture. Have waited seven hours. They have closedthe shutters. 

McCord. 

WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF THE ABOVE NOTE. 

Watch the roof. 

Dodds. 

Chapter IX. FLANNIGAN'S FIND

The most charitable thing would be to say nothing about the first day. We were baldly brutal--that's the only word for it. And Mr. Harbison, with his beautiful courtesy--the really sincere kind--tried to patch upone quarrel after another and failed. He rose superbly to the occasion, and made something that he called a South American goulash for luncheon, although it was too salty, and every one was thirsty the rest of theday. 

Bella was horrid, of course. She froze Jim until he said he was going tosit in the refrigerator and cool the butter. She locked herself in thedressing room--it had been assigned to me, but that made no differenceto Bella--and did her nails, and took three different baths, and refusedto come to the table. And of course Jimmy was wild, and said she wouldstarve. But I said, "Very well, let her starve. Not a tray shall leavemy kitchen. " It was a comfort to have her shut up there anyhow; itpostponed the time when she would come face to face with Flannigan. 

Aunt Selina got sick that day, as I have said. I was not so bitter asthe others; I did not say that I wished she would die. The worst I everwished her was that she might be quite ill for some time, and yet, whenshe began to recover, she was dreadful to me. She said for one thing, that it was the hard-boiled eggs and the state of the house that didit, and when I said that the grippe was a germ, she retorted that I hadprobably brought it to her on my clothing. 

You remember that Betty had drawn the nurse's slip, and how pleased shehad been about it. She got up early the morning of the first dayand made herself a lawn cap and telephoned out for a white nurse'suniform--that is, of course, for a white uniform for a nurse. She reallylooked very fetching, and she went around all the morning with a redcross on her sleeve and a Saint Cecilia expression, gathering up bottlesof medicine--most of it flesh reducer, which was pathetic, and closingwindows for fear of drafts. She refused to help with the house work, andlooked quite exalted, but by afternoon it had palled on her somewhat, and she and Max shook dice. 

Betty was really pleased when Aunt Selina sent for her. She took in abottle of cologne to bathe her brow, and we all stood outside the doorand listened. Betty tiptoed in in her pretty cap and apron, and we heardher cautiously draw down the shades. 

"What are you doing that for?" Aunt Selina demanded. "I like the light. "

"It's bad for your poor eyes, " Betty's tone was exactly the properbedside pitch, low and sugary. 

"Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind of the western sea!" Dal hummedoutside. 

"Put up those window shades!" Aunt Selina's voice was strong enough. "What's in that bottle?"

Betty was still mild. She swished to the window and raised the shade. 

"I'm SO sorry you are ill, " she said sympathetically. "This is for yourpoor aching head. Now close your eyes and lie perfectly still, and Iwill cool your forehead. "

"There's nothing the matter with my head, " Aunt Selina retorted. "AndI have not lost my faculties; I am not a child or a sick cow. If that'sperfumery, take it out. "

We heard Betty coming to the door, but there was no time to get away. She had dropped her mask for a minute and was biting her lip, but whenshe saw us she forced a smile. 

"She's ill, poor dear, " she said. "If you people will go away, I canbring her around all right. In two hours she will eat out of my hand. "

"Eat a piece out of your hand, " Max scoffed in a whisper. 

We waited a little longer, but it was too painful. Aunt Selina demandeda mustard foot bath and a hot lemonade and her back rubbed with linimentand some strong black tea. And in the intervals she wanted to be readto out of the prayer book. And when we had all gone away, there came themost terrible noise from Aunt Selina's room, and every one ran. We foundBetty in the hall outside the door, crying, with her fingers in her earsand her cap over her eye. She said she had been putting the hot waterbottle to Aunt Selina's back, and it had been too hot. Just thensomething hit against the door with a soft thud, fell to the floor andburst, for a trickle of hot water came over the sill. 

"She won't let me hold her hand, " Betty wailed, "or bathe her brow, orsmooth her pillow. She thinks of nothing but her stomach or her back!And when I try to make her bed look decent, she spits at me like a cat. Everything I do is wrong. She spilled the foot bath into her shoes, andblamed me for it. "

It took the united efforts of all of us--except Bella, who stood backand smiled nastily--to get Betty back into the sick room again. I wassupremely thankful by that time that I had not drawn the nurse's slip. With dinner ordered in from one of the clubs, and the omelet ten hoursbehind me, my position did not seem so unbearable. But a new developmentwas coming. 

While Betty was fussing with Aunt Selina, Max led a search of the house. He said the necklace and the bracelet must be hidden somewhere, and thatno crevice was too small to neglect. 

We made a formal search all together, except Betty and Aunt Selina, and we found a lot of things in different places that Jim said had beenmissing since the year one. But no jewels--nothing even suggesting ajewel was found. We had explored the entire house, every cupboard, every chest, even the insides of the couches and the pockets of Jim'sclothes--which he resented bitterly--and found nothing, and I mustsay the situation was growing rather strained. Some one had taken thejewels; they hadn't walked away. 

It was Flannigan who suggested the roof, and as we had tried every placeelse, we climbed there. Of course we didn't find anything, but after allday in the house with the shutters closed on account of reporters, theair was glorious. It was February, but quite mild and sunny, and wecould look down over Riverside Drive and the Hudson, and even recognizepeople we knew on horseback and in cars. It was a pathetic joy, and welined up along the parapet and watched the motor boats racing on theriver, and tried to feel that we were in the world as well as of it, butit was very hard. 

Betty had been making tea for Aunt Selina, and of course when she heardus up there, she followed, tray and all, and we drank Aunt Selina's teaand had the first really nice time of the day. Bella had come up, too, but she was still standoffish and queer, and she stood leaning against achimney and staring out over the river. After a little Mr. Harbison putdown his cup and went over to her, and they talked quite confidentiallyfor a long time. I thought it bad taste in Bella, under thecircumstances, after snubbing Dallas and Max, and of course treating Jimlike the dirt under her feet, to turn right around and be lovely to Mr. Harbison. It was hard for Jim. 

Max came and sat beside me, and Flannigan, who had been sent down formore cups, passed tea, putting the tray on top of the chimney. Jim wassitting grumpily on the roof, with his feet folded under him, playingCanfield in the shadow of the parapet, buying the deck out of one pocketand putting his winnings in the other. He was watching Bella, too, andshe knew it, and she strained a point to captivate Mr. Harbison. Any onecould see that. 

And that was the picture that came out in the next morning's papers, tea cups, cards and all. For when some one looked up, there were fournewspaper photographers on the roof of the next house, and they had theimpertinence to thank us!

Flannigan had seen Bella by that time, but as he still didn't understandthe situation, things were just the same. But his manner to me puzzledme; whenever he came near me he winked prodigiously, and during all thesearch he kept one eye on me, and seemed to be amused about something. 

When the rest had gone down to dress for dinner, which was being sentin, thank goodness, I still sat on the parapet and watched the darkeningriver. I felt terribly lonely, all at once, and sad. There wasn't anyone any nearer than father, in the West, or mother in Bermuda, whoreally cared a rap whether I sat on that parapet all night or not, or who would be sorry if I leaped to the dirty bricks of the nextdoor-yard--not that I meant to, of course. 

The lights came out across the river, and made purple and yellow streakson the water, and one of the motor boats came panting back to the yachtclub, coughing and gasping as if it had overdone. Down on the streetautomobiles were starting and stopping, cabs rolling, doors slamming, all the maddening, delightful bustle of people who are foot-free todine out, to dance, to go to the theater, to do any of the thousandpossibilities of a long February evening. And above them I sat on theroof and cried. Yes, cried. 

I was roused by some one coughing just behind me, and I tried tostraighten my face before I turned. It was Flannigan, his double row ofbrass buttons gleaming in the twilight. 

"Excuse me, miss, " he said affably, "but the boy from the hotel has leftthe dinner on the doorstep and run, the cowardly little divil! What'llI do with it? I went to Mrs. Wilson, but she says it's no concern ofhers. " Flannigan was evidently bewildered. 

"You'd better keep it warm, Flannigan, " I replied. "You needn't wait;I'm coming. " But he did not go. 

"If--if you'll excuse me, miss, " he said, "don't you think ye'd betthertell them?"

"Tell them what?"

"The whole thing--the joke, " he said confidentially, coming closer. "It's been great sport, now, hasn't it? But I'm afraid they will get onto it soon, and--some of them might not be agreeable. A pearl necklaceis a pearl necklace, miss, and the lady's wild. "

"What do you mean?" I gasped. "You don't think--why, Flannigan--"

He merely grinned at me and thrust his hand down in his pocket. Whenhe brought it up he had Bella's bracelet on his palm, glittering in thefaint light. 

"Where did you get it?" Between relief and the absurdity of the thing, I was almost hysterical. But Flannigan did not give me the bracelet;instead, it struck me his tone was suddenly severe. 

"Now look here, miss, " he said; "you've played your trick, and you'vehad your fun. The Lord knows it's only folks like you would play Aprilfool jokes with a fortune! If you're the sinsible little woman you lookto be, you'll put that pearl collar on the coal in the basement tonight, and let me find it. "

"I haven't got the pearl collar, " I protested. "I think you are crazy. Where did you get that bracelet?"

He edged away from me, as if he expected me to snatch it from him andrun, but he was still trying in an elephantine way to treat the matteras a joke. 

"I found it in a drawer in the pantry, " he said, "among the dirty linen. And if you're as smart as I think you are, I'll find the pearl collarthere in the morning--and nothing said, miss. "

So there I was, suspected of being responsible for Anne's pearl collar, as if I had not enough to worry me before. Of course I could have calledthem all together and told them, and made them explain to Flannigan whatI had really meant by my delirious speech in the kitchen. But thatwould have meant telling the whole ridiculous story to Mr. Harbison, andhaving him think us all mad, and me a fool. 

In all that overcrowded house there was only one place where I could bemiserable with comfort. So I stayed on the roof, and cried a littleand then became angry and walked up and down, and clenched my handsand babbled helplessly. The boats on the river were yellow, horizontalstreaks through my tears, and an early searchlight sent its shaft likea tangible thing in the darkness, just over my head. Then, finally, I curled down in a corner with my arms on the parapet, and the lightsbecame more and more prismatic and finally formed themselves into acircle that was Bella's bracelet, and that kept whirling around andaround on something flat and not over-clean, that was Flannigan's palm. 

Chapter X. ON THE STAIRS

I was roused by someone walking across the roof, the cracking of tinunder feet, and a comfortable and companionable odor of tobacco. Imoved a very little, and then I saw that it was a man--the height anderectness told me which man. And just at that instant he saw me. 

"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, and throwing his cigar away he came acrossquickly. "Why, Mrs. Wilson, what in the world are you doing here? Ithought--they said--"

"That I was sulking again?" I finished disagreeably. "Perhaps I am. Infact, I'm quite sure of it. "

"You are not, " he said severely. "You have been asleep in a Februarynight, in the open air, with less clothing on than I wear in thetropics. "

I had got up by this time, refusing his help, and because my feet werenumb, I sat down on the parapet for a moment. Oh, I knew what I lookedlike--one of those "Valley-of-the-Nile-After-a-Flood" pictures. 

"There is one thing about you that is comforting, " I sniffed. "You saidprecisely the same thing to me at three o'clock this morning. You neverstartle me by saying anything unexpected. "

He took a step toward me, and even in the dusk I could see that he waslooking down at me oddly. All my bravado faded away and there was aqueerish ringing in my ears. 

"I would like to!" he said tensely. "I would like, this minute--I'ma fool, Mrs. Wilson, " he finished miserably. "I ought to be drawn andquartered, but when I see you like this I--I get crazy. If you say theword, I'll--I'll go down and--" He clenched his fist. 

It was reprehensible, of course; he saw that in an instant, for he shuthis teeth over something that sounded very fierce, and strode away fromme, to stand looking out over the river, with his hands thrust in hispockets. Of course the thing I should have done was to ignore what hehad said altogether, but he was so uncomfortable, so chastened, that, feline, feminine, whatever the instinct is, I could not let him go. Ihad been so wretched myself. 

"What is it you would like to say?" I called over to him. He did notspeak. "Would you tell me that I am a silly child for pouting?" Noreply; he struck a match. "Or would you preach a nice little sermonabout people--about women--loving their husbands?"

He grunted savagely under his breath. 

"Be quite honest, " I pursued relentlessly. "Say that we are a lotof barbarians, say that because my--because Jimmy treats meoutrageously--oh, he does; any one can see that--and because I loathehim--and any one can tell that--why don't you say you are shocked tothe depths?" I was a little shocked myself by that time, but I couldn'tstop, having started. 

He came over to me, white-faced and towering, and he had the audacityto grip my arm and stand me on my feet, like a bad child--which I was, Idare say. 

"Don't!" he said in a husky, very pained voice. "You are only talking;you don't mean it. It isn't YOU. You know you care, or else why are youcrying up here? And don't do it again, DON'T DO IT AGAIN--or I will--"

"You will--what?"

"Make a fool of myself, as I have now, " he finished grimly. And then hestalked away and left me there alone, completely bewildered, to find myway down in the dark. 

I groped along, holding to the rail, for the staircase to the roof wasvery steep, and I went slowly. Half-way down the stairs there was atiny landing, and I stopped. I could have sworn I heard Mr. Harbison'sfootsteps far below, growing fainter. I even smiled a little, there inthe dark, although I had been rather profoundly shaken. The next instantI knew I had been wrong; some one was on the landing with me. I couldhear short, sharp breathing, and then--

I am not sure that I struggled; in fact, I don't believe I did--I wastoo limp with amazement. The creature, to have lain in wait for me likethat! And he was brutally strong; he caught me to him fiercely, and heldme there, close, and he kissed me--not once or twice, but half a dozentimes, long kisses that filled me with hot shame for him, for myself, that I had--liked him. The roughness of his coat bruised my cheek; Iloathed him. And then someone came whistling along the hall below, andhe pushed me from him and stood listening, breathing in long, gaspingbreaths. 

I ran; when my shaky knees would hold me, I ran. I wanted to hide my hotface, my disgust, my disillusion; I wanted to put my head in mother'slap and cry; I wanted to die, or be ill, so I need never see him again. Perversely enough, I did none of those things. With my face stillflaming, with burning eyes and hands that shook, I made a belatedevening toilet and went slowly, haughtily, down the stairs. My handswere like ice, but I was consumed with rage. Oh, I would show him--thatthis was New York, not Iquique; that the roof was not his Andeantableland. 

Every one elaborately ignored my absence from dinner. The Dallas Browns, Max and Lollie were at bridge; Jim was alone in the den, walking thefloor and biting at an unlighted cigar; Betty had returned to AuntSelina and was hysterical, they said, and Flannigan was in deepdejection because I had missed my dinner. 

"Betty is making no end of a row, " Max said, looking up from his game, "because the old lady upstairs insists on chloroform liniment. Bettysays the smell makes her ill. "

"And she can inhale Russian cigarettes, " Anne said enviously, "andgasolene fumes, without turning a hair. I call a revoke, Dal; youtrumped spades on the second round. "

Dal flung over three tricks with very bad grace, and Anne counted themwith maddening deliberation. 

"Game and rubber, " she said. "Watch Dal, Max; he will cheat in the scoreif he can. Kit, don't have another clam while I am in this house. I haveeaten so many lately my waist rises and falls with the tide. "

"You have a stunning color, Kit, " Lollie said. "You are really quitesuperb. Who made that gown?"

"Where have you been hiding, du kleine?" Max whispered, under cover ofshowing me the evening paper, with a photograph of the house and a crossat the cellar window where we had tried to escape. "If one day in thehouse with you, Kit, puts me in this condition, what will a month do?"

From beyond the curtain of a sort of alcove, lighted with a red-shadedlamp, came a hum of conversation, Bella's cool, even tones, and a heavymasculine voice. They were laughing; I could feel my chin go up. He wasnot even hiding his shame. 

"Max, " I asked, while the others clamored for him and the game, "has anyone been up through the house since dinner? Any of the men?"

He looked at me curiously. 

"Only Harbison, " he replied promptly. "Jim has been eating his heartout in the den every since dinner; Dal played the Sonata Appasionatabackward on the pianola--he wanted to put through one of Anne's lingeriewaists, on a wager that it would play a tune; I played craps withLollie, and Flannigan has been washing dishes. Why?"

Well, that was conclusive, anyhow. I had had a faint hope that it mighthave been a joke, although it had borne all the evidences of sincerity, certainly. But it was past doubting now; he had lain in wait for me atthe landing, and had kissed me, ME, when he thought I was Jimmy's wife. Oh, I must have been very light, very contemptible, if that was what hethought of me!

I went into the library and got a book, but it was impossible to read, with Jimmy lying on the couch giving vent to something between a sighand a groan every few minutes. About eleven the cards stopped, and Bellasaid she would read palms. She began with Mr. Harbison, because shedeclared he had a wonderful hand, full of possibilities; she said heshould have been a great inventor or a playwright, and that his attitudeto women was one of homage, respect, almost reverence. He had thecourage to look at me, and if a glance could have killed he would havewithered away. 

When Jimmy proffered his hand, she looked at it icily. Of course shecould not refuse, with Mr. Harbison looking on. 

"Rather negative, " she said coldly. "The lines are obscured by cushionsof flesh; no heart line at all, mentality small, self-indulgence andirritability very marked. "

Jim held his palm up to the light and stared at it. 

"Gad!" he said. "Hardly safe for me to go around without gloves, is it?"

It was all well enough for Jim to laugh, but he was horribly hurt. Hestood around for a few minutes, talking to Anne, but as soon as he couldhe slid away and went to bed. He looked very badly the next morning, as though he had not slept, and his clothes quite hung on him. He wasactually thinner. But that is ahead of the story. 

Max came to me while the others were sitting around drinking nightcaps, and asked me in a low tone if he could see me in the den; he wanted toask me something. Dal overheard. 

"Ask her here, " he said. "We all know what it is, Max. Go ahead andwe'll coach you. "

"Will you coach ME?" I asked, for Mr. Harbison was listening. 

"The woman does not need it, " Dal retorted. And then, because Max lookedangry enough really to propose to me right there, I got up hastily andwent into the den. Max followed, and closing the door, stood with hisback against it. 

"Contrary to the general belief, Kit, " he began, "I did NOT intend toask you to marry me. "

I breathed easier. He took a couple of steps toward me and stood withhis arms folded, looking down at me. "I'm not at all sure, in fact, thatI shall ever propose to you, " he went on unpleasantly. 

"You have already done it twice. You are not going to take those back, are you, Max?" I asked, looking up at him. 

But Max was not to be cajoled. He came close and stood with his hand onthe back of my chair. "What happened on the roof tonight?" He demandedhoarsely. 

"I do not think it would interest you, " I retorted, coloring in spite ofmyself. 

"Not interest me! I am shut in this blasted house; I have to see theonly woman I ever loved--REALLY loved, " he supplemented, as he caught myeye, "pretend she is another man's wife. Then I sit back and watch herusing every art--all her beauty--to make still another man love her, a man who thinks she is a married woman. If Harbison were worth thetrouble, I would tell him the whole story, Aunt Selina be--obliterated!"

I sat up suddenly. 

"If Harbison were worth the trouble!" I repeated. What did he mean? Hadhe seen--

"I mean just this, " Max said slowly. "There is only one unaccreditedmember of this household; only one person, save Flannigan, who waslocked in the furnace room, one person who was awake and around thehouse when Anne's jewels went, only one person in the house, also, whowould have any motive for the theft. "

"Motive?" I asked dully. 

"Poverty, " Max threw at me. "Oh, I mean comparative poverty, of course. Who is this fellow, anyhow? Dal knew him at school, traveled with himthrough India. On the strength of that he brings him here, quarters himwith decent people, and wonders when they are systematically robbed!"

"You are unjust!" I said, rising and facing him. "I do not like Mr. Harbison--I--I hate him, if you want to know. But as to his being athief, I--think it is quite as likely that you took the necklace. "

Max threw his cigarette into the fire angrily. 

"So that is how it is!" he mocked. "If either of us is the thief, it isI! You DO hate him, don't you?"

I left him there, flushed with irritation, and joined the others. Justas I entered the room, Betty burst through the hall door like a cyclone, and collapsed into a chair. "She's a mean, cantankerous old woman!" shedeclared, feeling for her handkerchief. "You can take care of your ownAunt Selina, Jim Wilson. I will never go near her again. "

"What did you do? Poison her?" Dallas asked with interest. 

"G--got camphor in her eyes, " snuffed Betty. "You never--heard such anoise. I wouldn't be a trained nurse for anything in the world. She--shecalled me a hussy!"

"You're not going to give her up, are you, Betty?" Jim askedimploringly. But Betty was, and said so plainly. 

"Anyhow, she won't have me back, " she finished, "and she has sentfor--guess!"

"Have mercy!" Dal cried, dropping to his knees. "Oh, fair ministeringangel, she has not sent for me!"

"No, " Betty said maliciously. "She wants Bella--she's crazy about her. "

Chapter XI. I MAKE A DISCOVERY

Really, I have left Aunt Selina rather out of it, but she was importantas a cause, not as a result; at least at first. She came out stronglater. I believe she was a very nice old woman, with strong likes andprejudices, which she was perfectly willing to pay for. At least, I onlypresume she had likes; I know she had prejudices. 

Nobody every understood why Bella consented to take Betty's place withAunt Selina. As for me, I was too much engrossed with my own affairsto pay the invalid much attention. Once or twice during the day I hadstopped in to see her, and had been received frigidly and with markeddisapproval. I was in disgrace, of course, after the scene in the diningroom the night before. I had stood like a naughty child, just inside thedoor, and replied meekly when she said the pillows were overstuffed, andwhy didn't I have the linen slips rinsed in starch water? She laid theblame of her illness on me, as I have said before, and she made Jim readto her in the afternoon from a book she carried with her, Coals of Fireon the DOMESTIC Hearth, marking places for me to read. 

She sent for me that night, just as I had taken off my gown; so I threwon a dressing gown and went in. To my horror, Jim was already there. Ata gesture from Aunt Selina, he closed the door into the hall and tiptoedback beside the bed, where he sat staring at the figures on the silkcomfort. 

Aunt Selina's first words were:

"Where's that flibberty-gibbet?"

Jim looked at me. 

"She must mean Betty, " I explained. "She has gone to bed, I think. "

"Don't--let--her--in--this--room--again, " she said, with awful emphasis. "She is an infamous creature. "

"Oh, come now, Aunt Selina, " Jim broke in; "she's foolish, perhaps, butshe's a nice little thing. "

Aunt Selina's face was a curious study. Then she raised herself on herelbow, and, taking a flat chamois-skin bag from under her pillow, heldit out. 

"My cameo breastpin, " she said solemnly; "my cuff-buttons with gold rimsand storks painted on china in the middle; my watch, that has put me tobed and got me up for forty years, and my money--five hundred and tendollars and forty cents!--taken with the doors locked under my nose. "Which was ambiguous, but forcible. 

"But, good gracious, Miss Car--Aunt Selina!" I exclaimed, "you don'tthink Betty Mercer took those things?"

"No, " she said grimly; "I think I probably got up in my sleep andlighted the fire with them, or sent em out for a walk. " Then she stuffedthe bag away and sat up resolutely in bed. 

"Have you made up?" she demanded, looking from one to the other of us. "Bella, don't tell me you still persist in that nonsense. "

"What nonsense?" I asked, getting ready to run. 

"That you do not love him. "

"Him?"

"James, " she snapped irritably. "Do you suppose I mean the policeman?"

I looked over at Jimmy. She had got me by the hand, and Jimmy was makingfrantic gestures to tell her the whole thing and be done with it. ButI had gone too far. The mill of the gods had crushed me already, andI didn't propose to be drawn out hideously mangled and held up as anexample for the next two or three weeks, although it was clear enoughthat Aunt Selina disapproved of me thoroughly, and would have been gladenough to find that no tie save the board of health held us together. And then Bella came in, and you wouldn't have known her. She had put ona straight white woolen wrapper, and she had her hair in two long braidsdown her back. She looked like a nice, wide-eyed little girl in herteens, and she had some lobster salad and a glass of port on a tray. When she saw the situation, she put the things down and had thenastiness to stay and listen. 

"I'm not blind, " Aunt Selina said, with one eye on the tray. "You twosilly children adore each other; I saw some things last night. "

Bella took a step forward; then she stopped and shrugged her shoulders. Jim was purple. 

"I saw you kiss her in the dining room, remember that!" Aunt Selina wenton, giving the screw another turn. 

It was Bella's turn to be excited. She gave me one awful stare, then shefixed her eyes on Jim. 

"Besides, " Aunt Selina went on, "you told me today that you loved her. Don't deny it, James. "

Bella couldn't keep quiet another instant. She came over and stood atthe foot of the bed. 

"Please don't excite yourself, DEAR Miss Caruthers, " she said in a voicelike ice. "Every one knows that he loves her; he simply overflowswith it. It--it is quite a by-word among their friends. They have beensitting together in a corner all evening. "

Yes, that was what she said; when I had not spoken to Jimmy the wholetime in the den. Bella was cattish, and she was jealous, too. I turnedon my heel and went to the door; then I turned to her, with my hand onthe knob. 

"You have been misinformed, " I said coldly. "You can not possibly know, having spent three hours in a corner yourself--with Mr. Harbison. " Iabhor jealousy in a woman. 

Well, Aunt Selina ate all the lobster salad, and drank the port afterBella had told her it was beef, iron and wine, and she slept all night, and was able to sit up in a chair the next day, and was so infatuatedwith Bella that she would not let her out of her sight. But that isahead of the story. 

At midnight the house was fairly quiet, except for Jim, who kept walkingaround the halls because he couldn't sleep. I got up at last and orderedhim to bed, and he had the audacity to have a grievance with me. 

"Look at my situation now!" he said, sitting pensively on a steamradiator. "Aunt Selina is crazy. I only kissed your hand, anyhow, and Idon't know why you sat in the den all evening; you might have known thatBella would notice it. Why couldn't you leave me alone to my misery?"

"Very well, " I said, much offended. "After this I shall sit withFlannigan in the kitchen. He is the only gentleman in the house. "

I left him babbling apologies and went to bed, but I had anuncomfortable feeling that Bella had been a witness to our conversation, for the door into Aunt Selina's room closed softly as I passed. 

I knew beforehand that I was not going to sleep. The instant I turnedout the light the nightmare events of the evening ranged themselves ina procession, or a series of tableaus, one after the other; Flannigan onthe roof, with the bracelet on his palm, looking accusingly at me; Mr. Harbison and the scene on the roof, with my flippancy; and the resultof that flippancy--the man on the stairs, the arms that held me, theterrible kisses that had scorched my lips--it was awful! And then theabsurd situation across Aunt Selina's bed, and Bella's face! Oh, itwas all so ridiculous--my having thought that the Harbison man wasa gentleman, and finding him a cad, and worse. It was excruciatinglyfunny. I quite got a headache from laughing; indeed I laughed until Ifound I was crying, and then I knew I was going to have an attack ofstrangulated emotion, called hysteria. So I got up and turned on all thelights, and bathed my face with cologne, and felt better. 

But I did not go to sleep. When the hall clock chimed two, I discoveredI was hungry. I had had nothing since luncheon, and even the thirstfollowing the South American goulash was gone. There was probablysomething to eat in the pantry, and if there was not, I was quite equalto going to the basement. 

As it happened, however, I found a very orderly assortment of left-oversand a pitcher of milk, which had no business there in the pantry, andwith plenty of light I was not at all frightened. 

I ate bread and butter and drank milk, and was fast becoming a rationalperson again; I had pulled out one of the drawers part way, and with atray across the corner I had improvised a comfortable seat. And then Inoticed that the drawer was full of soiled napkins, and I remembered thebracelet. I hardly know why I decided to go through the drawer again, after Flannigan had already done it, but I did. I finished my milk andthen, getting down on my knees, I proceeded systematically to empty thedrawer. I took out perhaps a dozen napkins and as many doilies withoutfinding anything. Then I took out a large tray cloth, and there wassomething on it that made me look farther. One corner of it had beenscorched, the clear and well defined imprint of a lighted cigarette orcigar, a blackened streak that trailed off into a brown and yellow. I had a queer, trembly feeling, as if I were on the brink of adiscovery--perhaps Anne's pearls, or the cuff buttons with storkspainted on china in the center. But the only thing I found, down in thecorner of the drawer, was a half-burned cigarette. 

To me, it seemed quite enough. It was one of the South Americancigarettes, with a tobacco wrapper instead of paper, that Mr. Harbisonsmoked. 

Chapter XII. THE ROOF GARDEN

I was quite ill the next morning--from excitement, I suppose. Anyhow, I did not get up, and there wasn't any breakfast. Jim said he rousedFlannigan at eight o'clock, to go down and get the fire started, andthen went back to bed. But Flannigan did not get up. He appeared, sheepishly, at half-past ten, and by that time Bella was down, in atowering rage, and had burned her hand and got the fire started, and hadtaken up a tray for Aunt Selina and herself. 

As the others straggled down they boiled themselves eggs or ate fruit, and nobody put anything away. Lollie Mercer made me some tea andscorched toast, and brought it, about eleven o'clock. 

"I never saw such a house, " she declared. "A dozen housemaids couldn'tput it in order. Why should every man that smokes drop ashes wherever hehappens to be?"

"That's the question of the ages, " I replied languidly. "What wasMax talking so horribly about a little while ago?" Lollie looked upaggrieved. 

"About nothing at all, " she declared. "Anne told me to clean the bathtubs with oil, and I did it, that's all. Now Max says he couldn't get itoff, and his clothes stick to him, and if he should forget and strike amatch in the--in the usual way, he would explode. He can clean his owntub tomorrow, " she finished vindictively. 

At noon Jim came in to see me, bringing Anne as a concession to Bella. He was in a rage, and he carried the morning paper like a club in hishand. 

"What sort of a newspaper lie would you call this?" he demandedirritably. "It makes me crazy; everybody with a mental image of meleaning over the parapet of the roof, waving a board, with the rest ofyou sitting on my legs to keep me from overbalancing!"

"Maybe there's a picture!" Anne said hopefully. 

Jim looked. 

"No picture, " he announced. "I wonder why they restrained themselves!I wish Bella would keep off the roof, " he added, with fresh accessof rage, "or wear a mask or veil. One of those fellows is going torecognize her, and there'll be the deuce to pay. "

"When you are all through discussing this thing, perhaps you will tellme what is the matter, " I remarked from my couch. "Why did you lean overthe parapet, Jim, and who sat on your legs?"

"I didn't; nobody did, " he retorted, waving the newspaper. "It's alie out of the whole cloth, that's what it is. I asked you girls tobe decent to those reporters; it never pays to offend a newspaper man. Listen to this, Kit. "

He read the article rapidly, furiously, pausing every now and then tomake an exasperated comment. 

ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE FRUSTRATED MEMBERS OF THE FOUR HUNDRED DEFY THE LAW

"Special Officer McCloud, on duty at the quarantined house of JamesWilson, artist and clubman, on Ninety-fifth Street, reported thismorning a daring attempt at escape, made at 3 A. M. It is in this housethat some eight or nine members of the smart set were imprisonedduring the course of a dinner party, when the Japanese butler developedsmallpox. The party shut in the house includes Miss Katherine McNair, the daughter of Theodore McNair, of the Inter-Ocean system; Mr. And Mrs. Dallas Brown; the Misses Mercer; Maxwell Reed, the well-known clubmanand whip; and a Mr. Thomas Harbison, guest of the Dallas Browns and aSouth American. 

"Officer McCloud's story, told to a Chronicle reporter this morning, isas follows: The occupants of the house had been uneasy all day. From theair of subdued bustle, and from a careful inspection of the roof, made by the entire party during the afternoon, his suspicion had beenaroused. Nothing unusual, however, occurred during the early part of thenight. From eight o'clock to twelve, McCloud was relieved from duty, hisplace being taken by Michael Shane, of the Eighty-sixth Street Station. 

"When McCloud came on duty at midnight, Shane reported that about eleveno'clock the searchlight of a steamer on the river, flashing over thehouse, had shown a man crouching on the parapet, evidently surveyingthe roof across, which at this point is only twelve feet distant, with aview of making his escape. One seeing Shane below, however, he had beata retreat, but not before the officer had seen him distinctly. He wasdressed in evening clothes and wore a light tan overcoat. 

"Officer McCloud relieved Shane at midnight, and sent for aplain-clothes man from the station house. This man was stationed on theroof of the Bevington residence next door, with strict injunctionsto prevent an escape from the quarantined mansion. Nothing suspicioushaving occurred, the man on the roof left about 3 A. M. , reportingto McCloud below that everything was quiet. At that moment, glancingskyward, one of the officers was astounded to see a long narrow boardproject itself from the coping of the Wildon house, waver uncertainlyfor a moment, and then advance stealthily toward the parapet across. When it was within a foot or two of a resting place, McCloud calledsharply to the invisible refugee above, at the same time firing hisrevolver in the ground. 

"The result was surprising. The board stopped, trembled, swayed alittle, and dropped, missing the vigilant officers by a hair's breadth, and crashing to the cement with a terrific force. An inspection of theroof from the Bevington house, later, revealed nothing unusual. Itis evident, however, that the quarantine is proving irksome to theinhabitants of the sequestered residence, most of whom are typicalsociety folk, without resources in themselves. Their condition, withoutvalets and maids, is certainly pitiable. It has been rumored thatthe ladies are doing their own hair, and that the gentlemen have beenreduced to putting their own buttons in their shirts. This deplorablesituation, however, is unavoidable. 

"The vigilance of the board of health has been most commendable in thiscase. Beginning with a wager over the telephone that they would breakquarantine in twenty-four hours, and ending with the attempt to spana twelve-foot gulf with a board, over which to cross to freedom, theseshut-in society folk have shown characteristic disregard of the lawsof the state. It is quite time to extend to the millionaire the samestrictness that keeps the commuter at home for three weeks with themeasles; that makes him get the milk bottles and groceries from thegate post and smell like dog soap for a month afterward, as a result ofdisinfection. '"

We sat in dead silence for a minute. Then:

"Perhaps it is true, " I said. "Not of you, Jim--but some one may havetried to get out that way. In fact, I think it extremely likely. "

"Who? Flannigan? You couldn't drive him out. He's having the time of hislife. Do you suspect me?"

"Come away and don't fight, " Anne broke in pacifically. "You will haveto have luncheon sent in, Jimmy; nobody has ordered anything from theshops, and I feel like old Mother Hubbard. "

"I wish you would all go out, " I said wearily. "If every man in thehouse says he didn't try to get over to the next roof last night, welland good. But you might look and see if the board is still lying whereit fell. "

There was an instantaneous rush for the window, and a second's pause. Then Jimmy's voice, incredulous, awed:

"Well, I'll be--blessed! There's the board!"

I stayed in my room all that day. My head really ached and then, too, I did not care to meet Mr. Harbison. It would have to come; I realizedthat a meeting was inevitable, but I wanted time to think how I wouldmeet him. It would be impossible to cut him, without rousing thecuriosity of the others to fever pitch; and it was equally impossible toignore the disgraceful episode on the stairs. As it happened, however, Ineed not have worried. I went down to dinner, languidly, when everyone was seated, and found Max at my right, and Mr. Harbison moved overbeside Bella. Every one was talking at once, for Flannigan, amblingaround the table as airily as he walked his beat, had presented Bellawith her bracelet on a salad plate, garnished with romaine. He had foundit in the furnace room, he said, where she must have dropped it. And helooked at me stealthily, to approve his mendacity!

Every one was famished, and as they ate they discussed the board in thearea way, and pretended to deride it as a clever bit of press work, torevive a dying sensation. No one was deceived; Anne's pearls and theattempt to escape, coming just after, pointed only to one thing. Ilooked around the table, dazed. Flannigan, almost the only unknownquantity, might have tried to escape the night before, but he would nothave been in dress clothes. Besides, he must be eliminated as far as thepearls were concerned, having been locked in the furnace room the nightthey were stolen. There was no one among the girls to suspect. TheMercer girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they wantedlegitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no question aboutit, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to their bosom--or isit a viper?--and the Harbison man was the creature. Although I must saythat, looking over the table, at Jimmy's breadth and not very imposingpersonality, at Max's lean length, sallow skin, and bold dark eyes, atDallas, blond, growing bald and florid, and then at the Harbison boy, tall, muscular, clear-eyed and sunburned, one would have taken Max atfirst choice as the villain, with Dal next, Jim third, and the Harbisonboy not in the running. 

It was just after dinner that the surprise was sprung on me. Mr. Harbison came around to me gravely, and asked me if I felt able to goup on the roof. On the roof, after last night! I had to gather myselftogether; luckily, the others were pushing back their chairs, showingFlannigan the liqueur glasses to take up, and lighting cigars. 

"I do not care to go, " I said icily. 

"The others are coming, " he persisted, "and I--I could give you an armup the stairs. "

"I believe you are good at that, " I said, looking at him steadily. "Max, will you help me to the roof?"

Mr. Harbison really turned rather white. Then he bowed ceremoniously andleft me. 

Max got me a wrap, and every one except Mr. Harbison and Bella, who wastaking a mass of indigestables to Aunt Selina, went to the roof. 

"Where is Tom?" Anne asked, as we reached the foot of the stairs. "Goneahead to fix things, " was the answer. But he was not there. At the topof the last flight I stopped, dumb with amazement; the roof had beentransformed, enchanted. It was a fairy-land of lights and foliage andcolors. I had to stop and rub my eyes. From the bleakness of a tin roofin February to the brightness and greenery of a July roof garden!

"You were the immediate inspiration, Kit, " Dallas said. "Harbisonthought your headache might come from lack of exercise and fresh air, and he has worked us like nailers all day. I've a blister on my rightpalm, and Harbison got shocked while he was wiring the place, andnearly fell over the parapet. We bought out two full-sized florists bytelephone. "

It was the most amazing transformation. At each corner a pole had beenerected, and wires crossed the roof diagonally, hung with red and amberbulbs. Around the chimneys had been massed evergreen trees in tubs, hiding their brick-and-mortar ugliness, and among the trees tiny lightswere strung. Along the parapet were rows of geometrical boxwood plantsin bright red crocks, and the flaps of a crimson and white tent hadbeen thrown open, showing lights within, and rugs, wicker chairs, andcushions. 

Max raised a glass of benedictine and posed for a moment, melodramatically. 

"To the Wilson roof garden!" he said. "To Kit, who inspired; to thecreators, who perspired; and to Takahiro--may he not have expired. "

Every one was very gay; I think the knowledge that tomorrow Aunt Selinamight be with them urged them to make the most of this last night offreedom. I tried to be jolly, and succeeded in being feverish. Mr. Harbison did not come up to enjoy what he had wrought. Jim brought uphis guitar and sang love songs in a beautiful tenor, looking at Bellaall the time. And Bella sat in a steamer chair, with a rug over her anda spangled veil on her head, looking at the boats on the river--about assoft and as chastened as an an acetylene headlight. 

And after Max had told the most improbable tale, which Leila advised himto sprinkle salt on, and Dallas had done a clog dance, Bella said itwas time for her complexion sleep and went downstairs, and broke up theparty. 

"If she only give half as an much care to her immortal soul, " Anne saidwhen she had gone, "as she does to her skin, she would let that niceHarbison boy alone. She must have been brutal to him tonight, for hewent to bed at nine o'clock. At least, I suppose he went to bed, for heshut himself in the studio, and when I knocked he advised me not to comein. "

I had pleaded my headache as an excuse for avoiding Aunt Selina all day, and she had not sent for me. Bella was really quite extraordinary. She was never in the habit of putting herself out for any one, and shealways declared that the very odor of a sick room drove her to Scotchand soda. But here she was, rubbing Aunt Selina's back with chloroformliniment--and you know how that smells--getting her up in a chair, dressed in one of Bella's wadded silk robes, with pillows under herfeet, and then doing her hair in elaborate puffs--braiding her grayswitch and bringing it, coronet-fashion, around the top of her head. She even put rice powder on Aunt Selina's nose, and dabbed violet waterbehind her ears, and said she couldn't understand why she (Aunt Selina)had never married, but, of course, she probably would some day!

The result was, naturally, that the old lady wouldn't let Bella out ofher sight, except to go to the kitchen for something to eat for her. That very day Bella got the doctor to order ale for Aunt Selina (oh, yes; the doctor could come in; Dal said "it was all a-coming in, andnothing going out") and she had three pints of Bass, and learned to eatanchovies and caviare--all in one day. 

Bella's conduct to Jim was disgraceful. She snubbed him, ignored him, tramped on him, and Jim was growing positively flabby. He spent most ofhis time writing letters to the board of health and playing solitaire. He was a pathetic figure. 

Well, we went to bed fairly early. Bella had massaged Aunt Selina'sface and rubbed in cold cream, Anne and Dallas had compromised on whichwindow should be open in their bedroom, and the men had matched to seewho should look at the furnace. I did not expect to sleep, but the coldnight air had done its work, and I was asleep almost immediately. 

Some time during the early part of the night I wakened, and, afterturning and twisting uneasily, I realized that I was cold. The couchin Bella's dressing room was comfortable enough, but narrow and low. Iremember distinctly (that was what was so maddening; everybody thought Idreamed it)--I remember getting an eiderdown comfort that was foldedat my feet, and pulling it up around me. In the luxury of its warmth Isnuggled down and went to sleep almost instantly. It seemed to me I hadslept for hours, but it was probably an hour or less, when somethingroused me. The room was perfectly dark, and there was not a sound savethe faint ticking of the clock, but I was wide awake. 

And then came the incident that in its ghastly, horrible absurdity madethe rest of the people shout with laughter the next day. It was notfunny then. For suddenly the eiderdown comfort began to slip. I heard nofootstep, not the slightest sound approaching me, but the comfortmoved; from my chin, inch by inch, it slipped to my shoulders; awfully, inevitably, hair-raisingly it moved. I could feel my blood gather aroundmy heart, leaving me cold and nerveless. As it passed my hands I gavean involuntary clutch for it, to feel it slip away from my fingers. Thenthe full horror of the situation took hold of me; as the comfort slidpast my feet I sat up and screamed at the top of my voice. 

Of course, people came running in all sorts of things. I was stillsitting up, declaring I had seen a ghost and that the house was haunted. Dallas was struggling for the second armhole of his dressing gown andBella had already turned on the lights. They said I had had a nightmare, and not to sleep on my back, and perhaps I was taking grippe. 

And just then we heard Jimmy run down the stairs, and fall oversomething, almost breaking his wrist. It was the eiderdown comfort, half-way up the studio staircase!

Chapter XIII. HE DOES NOT DENY IT

Aunt Selina got up the next morning and Jim told her all the strangethings that had been happening. She fixed on Flannigan, of course, although she still suspected Betty of her watch and other valuables. Theincident of the comfort she called nervous indigestion and bad hours. 

She spent the entire day going through the storeroom and linen closets, and running her fingers over things for dust. Whenever she found anyshe looked at me, drew a long breath, and said, "Poor James!" It wasmaddening. And when she went through his clothes and found some buttonsoff (Jim didn't keep a man, and Takahiro had stopped at his boots) shelooked at me quite awfully. 

"His mother was a perfect housekeeper, " she said. "James was brought upin clothes with the buttons on, put on clean shelves. "

"Didn't they put them on him?" I asked, almost hysterically. It had beena bad morning, after a worse night. Every one had found fault with thebreakfast, and they straggled down one at a time until I was frantic. Then Flannigan had talked to me about the pearls, and Mr. Harbison hadsaid, "Good morning, " very stiffly, and nearly rattled the inside of thefurnace out. 

Early in the morning, too, I overheard a scrap of conversation betweenthe policeman and our gentleman adventurer from South America. Somethinghad gone wrong with the telephone and Mr. Harbison was fussing over itwith a screw driver and a pair of scissors--all the tools he could find. Flannigan was lifting rugs to shake them on the roof--Bella's order. 

"Wash the table linen!" he was grumbling. "I'll do what I can that'snecessary. Grub has to be cooked, and dishes has to be washed--I'lladmit that. If you're particular, make up your bed every day; I don'tobject. But don't tell me we have to use thirty-three table napkinsa day. What did folks do before napkins was invented? Tell methat!"--triumphantly. 

"What's the answer?" Mr. Harbison inquired absently, evidently with thescrew driver in his mouth. 

"Used their pocket handkerchiefs! And if the worst comes to theworst, Mr. Harbison, these folks here can use their sleeves, for allI care--not that the women has any sleeves to speak of. Wash clothes Iwill not. "

"Well, don't worry Mrs. Wilson about it, " the other voice said. Flannigan straightened himself with a grunt. 

"Mrs. Wilson!" he said. "A lot she would worry. She's been adisappointment to me, Mr. Harbison, me thinking that now she'd come backto him, after leavin' him the way she did, they'd be like two turtledoves. Lord! The cook next door--"

But what the cook had told about Bella and Jimmy was not divulged, for the Harbison man caught him up with a jerk and sent Flannigan, grumbling, with his rugs to the roof. 

It did not seem possible to carry on the deception much longer, but ifthings were bad now, what would they be when Aunt Selina learned she hadbeen lied to, made ridiculous, generally deceived? And how would I beable to live in the house with her when she did know? Luckily, everyone was so puzzled over the mystery in the house that numbers of littlethings that would have been absolutely damning were never noticed atall. For instance, my asking Jimmy at luncheon that day if he took creamin his coffee! And Max coming to the rescue by dropping his watch inhis glass of water, and creating a diversion and giving everybody anopportunity to laugh by saying not to mind, it had been in soak before. 

Just after luncheon Aunt Selina brought me some undergarments of Jim'sto be patched. She explained at length that he had always worn out hisundergarments, because he always squirmed around so when he was sitting. And she showed me how to lay one of the garments over a pillow to getthe patch in properly. 

It was the most humiliating moment of my life, but there was no escape. I took my sewing to the roof, while she went away to find something elsefor me to do when that was finished, and I sat with the thing on myknee and stared at it, while rebellious tears rolled down my cheeks. The patch was not the shape of the hole at all, and every time I took astitch I sewed it fast to the pillow beneath. It was terrible. Jim cameup after a while and sat down across from me and watched, without sayinganything. I suppose what he felt would not have been proper to say tome. We had both reached the point where adequate language failed us. Finally he said:

"I wish I were dead. "

"So do I, " I retorted, jerking the thread. 

"Where is she now?"

"Looking for more of these. " I indicated the garment over the pillow, and he wiggled. "Please don't squirm, " I said coldly. "You will wear outyour--lingerie, and I will have to mend them. "

He sat very still for five minutes, when I discovered that I had put thepatch in crosswise instead of lengthwise and that it would not fit. As Ijerked it out he sneezed. 

"Or sneeze, " I added venomously. "You will tear your buttons off, and Iwill have to sew them on. "

Jim rose wrathfully. "Don't sit, don't sneeze, " he repeated. "Don'tstand, I suppose, for fear I will wear out my socks. Here, give me that. If the fool thing has to be mended, I'll do it myself. "

He went over to a corner of the parapet and turned his back to me. Hewas very much offended. In about a minute he came back, triumphant, andheld out the result of his labor. I could only gasp. He had puckered upthe edges of the hole like the neck of a bag, and had tied the threadaround it. "You--you won't be able to sit down, " I ventured. 

"Don't have any time to sit, " he retorted promptly. "Anyhow, it willgive some, won't it? It would if it was tied with elastic instead ofthread. Have you any elastic?"

Lollie came up just then, and Jim took himself and his mendingdownstairs. Luckily, Aunt Selina found several letters in his room thatafternoon while she was going over his clothes, and as it took Jim sometime to explain them, she forgot the task she had given me altogether. 

When Lollie came up to the roof, she closed the door to the stairs, andcoming over, drew a chair close to mine. 

"Have you seen much of Tom today?" she asked, as an introduction. 

"I suppose you mean Mr. Harbison, Lollie, " I said. "No--not any morethan I could help. Don't whisper, he couldn't possibly hear you. And ifit's scandal I don't want to know it. "

"Look here, Kit, " she retorted, "you needn't be so superior. If I liketo talk scandal, I'm not so sure you aren't making it. "

That was the way right along: I was making scandal; I brought them thereto dinner; I let Bella in!

And, of course, Anne came up then, and began on me at once. 

"You are a very bad girl, " she began. "What do you mean by treating TomHarbison the way you do? He is heart-broken. "

"I think you exaggerate my influence over him, " I retorted. "I haven'ttreated him badly, because I haven't paid any attention to him. "

Anne threw up her hands. 

"There you are!" she said. "He worked all day yesterday fixing thisplace for you--yes, for you, my dear. I am not blind--and last night yourefused to let him bring you up. "

"He told you!" I flamed. 

"He wondered what he had done. And as you wouldn't let him come withinspeaking distance of you, he came to me. "

"I am sorry, Anne, since you are fond of him, " I said. "But to me he isimpossible--intolerable. My reasons are quite sufficient. "

"Kit is perfectly right, Anne, " Leila broke in. "I tell you, there issomething queer about him, " she added in a portentous whisper. 

Anne stiffened. 

"He is perfect, " she declared. "Of good family, warm-hearted, courageous, handsome, clever--what more do you ask?"

"Honesty, " said Leila hotly. "That a man should be what he says he is. "

Anne and I both stared. 

"It is your Mr. Harbison, " Leila went on, "who tried to escape from thehouse by putting a board across to the next roof!"

"I don't believe it, " said Anne. "You might bring me a picture of him, board in hand, and I wouldn't believe it. "

"Don't then, " Lollie said cruelly. "Let him get away with your pearls;they are yours. Only, as sure as anything, the man who tried to escapefrom the house had a reason for escaping, and the papers said a man inevening dress and light overcoat. I found Mr. Harbison's overcoat todaylying in a heap in one of the maids' rooms, and it was covered withbrick dust all over the front. A button had even been torn off. "

"Pooh!" Anne said, when she had recovered herself a little. "There isn'tany reason, as far as that goes, why Flannigan shouldn't have worn Tom'sovercoat, or--any of the others. "

"Flannigan!" Leila said loftily. "Why, his arms are like piano legs; hecouldn't get into it. As for the others, there is only one person whowould fit, or nearly fit, that overcoat, and that is Dallas, Anne. "

While Anne was choking down her wrath, Leila got up and darted out ofthe tent. When she came back she was triumphant. 

"Look, " she said, holding out her hand. And on her palm lay a lightishbrown button. "I found it just where the paper said the board was thrownout, and it is from Mr. Harbison's overcoat, without a doubt. "

Of course I should not have been surprised. A man who would kiss a womanon a dark staircase--a woman he had known only two days--was capable ofanything. 

"Kit has only been a little keener than the rest of us, " Lollie said. "She found him out yesterday. "

"Upon my word, " said Anne indignantly, preparing to go, "if I didn'tknow you girls so well, I would think you were crazy. And now, just tooffset this, I can tell you something. Flannigan told me this morningnot to worry; that he has my pearl collar spotted, and that YOUNG LADIESWILL HAVE THEIR JOKES!"

Yes, as I said before, it was a cheerful, joy-producing situation. 

I sat and thought it over after Anne's parting shot, when Leila hadflounced downstairs. Things were closing in; I gave the situationtwenty-four hours to develop. At the end of that time Flannigan wouldaccuse me openly of knowing where the pearls were; I would explain mysilly remark to him and the mine would explode--under Aunt Selina. 

I was sunk in dejected reverie when some one came on the roof. When hewas opposite the opening in the tent, I saw Mr. Harbison, and at thatmoment he saw me. He paused uncertainly, then he made an evident effortand came over to me. 

"You are--better today?"

"Quite well, thank you. "

"I am glad you find the tent useful. Does it keep off the wind?"

"It is quite a shelter"--frigidly. 

He still stood, struggling for something to say. Evidently nothing cameto his mind, for he lifted the cap he was wearing, and turning away, began to work with the wiring of the roof. He was clever with tools; onecould see that. If he was a professional gentleman-burglar, no doubt heneeded to be. After a bit, finding it necessary to climb to the parapet, he took off his coat, without even a glance in my direction, and fell towork vigorously. 

One does not need to like a man to admire him physically, any more thanone needs to like a race horse or any other splendid animal. No onecould deny that the man on the parapet was a splendid animal; he lookedquite big enough and strong enough to have tossed his slender bridgeacross the gulf to the next roof, without any difficulty, and coordinateenough to have crossed on it with a flourish to safety. 

Just then there was a rending, tearing sound from the corner and amuttered ejaculation. I looked up in time to see Mr. Harbison throw uphis arms, make a futile attempt to regain his balance, and disappearover the edge of the roof. One instant he was standing there, splendid, superb; the next, the corner of the parapet was empty, all that stoodthere was a broken, splintered post and a tangle of wires. 

I could not have moved at first; at least, it seemed hours before thefull significance of the thing penetrated my dazed brain. When I got upI seemed to walk, to crawl, with leaden weights holding back my feet. 

When I got to the corner I had to catch the post for support. I knewsomebody was saying, "Oh, how terrible!" over and over. It was onlyafterward that I knew it had been myself. And then some other voice wassaying, "Don't be alarmed. Please don't be frightened. I'm all right. "

I dared to look over the parapet, finally, and instead of a crushed andunspeakable body, there was Mr. Harbison, sitting about eight feet belowme, with his feet swinging into space and a long red scratch from thecorner of his eye across his cheek. There was a sort of mansard there, with windows, and just enough coping to keep him from rolling off. 

"I thought you had fallen--all the way, " I gasped, trying to keep mylips from trembling. "I--oh, don't dangle your feet like that!"

He did not seem at all glad of his escape. He sat there gloomily, peering into the gulf beneath. 

"If it wasn't so--er--messy and generally unpleasant, " he repliedwithout looking up, "I would slide off and go the rest of the way. "

"You are childish, " I said severely. "See if you can get through thewindow behind you. If you can not, I'll come down and unfasten it. " Butthe window was open, and I had a chance to sit down and gather up thescattered ends of my nerves. To my surprise, however, when he came backhe made no effort to renew our conversation. He ignored me completely, and went to work at once to repair the damage to his wires, with hisback to me. 

"I think you are very rude, " I said at last. "You fell over there and Ithought you were killed. The nervous shock I experienced is just as badas if you had gone--all the way. "

He put down the hammer and came over to me without speaking. Then, whenhe was quite close, he said:

"I am very sorry if I startled you. I did not flatter myself that youwould be profoundly affected, in any event. "

"Oh, as to that, " I said lightly, "it makes me ill for days if my carruns over a dog. " He looked at me in silence. "You are not going to getup on that parapet again?"

"Mrs. Wilson, " he said, without paying the slightest attention to myquestion, "will you tell me what I have done?"

"Done?"

"Or have not done? I have racked my brains--stayed awake all of lastnight. At first I hoped it was impersonal, that, womanlike you weremerely venting general disfavor on one particular individual. But--yourhostility is to me, personally. "

I raised my eyebrows, coldly interrogative. 

"Perhaps, " he went on calmly--"perhaps I was a fool here on theroof--the night before last. If I said anything that I should not, I askyour pardon. If it is not that, I think you ought to ask mine!"

I was angry enough then. 

"There can be only one opinion about your conduct, " I retorted warmly. "It was worse than brutal. It--it was unspeakable. I have no words forit--except that I loathe it--and you. "

He was very grim by this time. "I have heard you say something like thatbefore--only I was not the unfortunate in that case. "

"Oh!" I was choking. 

"Under different circumstances I should be the last person to recallanything so--personal. But the circumstances are unusual. " He took anangry step toward me. "Will you tell me what I have done? Or shall I godown and ask the others?"

"You wouldn't dare, " I cried, "or I will tell them what you did! How youwaylaid me on those stairs there, and forced your caresses, your kisses, on me! Oh, I could die with shame!"

The silence that followed was as unexpected as it was ominous. I knewhe was staring at me, and I was furious to find myself so emotional, somuch more the excited of the two. Finally, I looked up. 

"You can not deny it, " I said, a sort of anti-climax. 

"No. " He was very quiet, very grim, quite composed. "No, " he repeatedjudicially. "I do not deny it. "

He did not? Or he would not? Which?

Chapter XIV. ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE

Dal had been acting strangely all day. Once, early in the evening, whenI had doubled no trump, he led me a club without apology, and lateron, during his dummy, I saw him writing our names on the back of anenvelope, and putting numbers after them. At my earliest opportunity Iwent to Max. 

"There is something the matter with Dal, Max, " I volunteered. "Hehas been acting strangely all day, and just now he was making out alist--names and numbers. "

"You're to blame for that, Kit, " Max said seriously. "You put washingsoda instead of baking soda in those biscuits today, and he thinks he isa steam laundry. Those are laundry lists he's making out. He asked me alittle while ago if I wanted a domestic finish. "

Yes, I had put washing soda in the biscuits. The book said soda, and howis one to know which is meant?

"I do not think you are calculated for a domestic finish, " I said coldlyas I turned away. "In any case I disclaim any such responsibility. But--there is SOMETHING on Dal's mind. "

Max came after me. "Don't be cross, Kit. You haven't said a nice wordto me today, and you go around bristling with your chin up and two redspots on your cheeks--like whatever-her-name-was with the snakes insteadof hair. I don't know why I'm so crazy about you; I always meant to lovea girl with a nice disposition. "

I left him then. Dal had gone into the reception room and closed thedoors. And because he had been acting so strangely, and partly to escapefrom Max, whose eyes looked threatening, I followed him. Just as Iopened the door quietly and looked in, Dallas switched off the lights, and I could hear him groping his way across the room. Then somebody--notDal--spoke from the corner, cautiously. 

"Is that you, Mr. Brown, sir?" It was Flannigan. 

"Yes. Is everything here?"

"All but the powder, sir. Don't step too close. They're spread all overthe place. "

"Have you taken the curtains down?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Matches?"

"Here, sir. "

"Light one, will you, Flannigan? I want to see the time. "

The flare showed Dallas and Flannigan bent over the timepiece. And itshowed something else. The rug had been turned back from the windowswhich opened on the street, and the curtains had been removed. On thebare hardwood floor just beneath the windows was an array of pans ofvarious sizes, dish pans, cake tins, and a metal foot tub. The pans wereraised from the floor on bricks, and seemed to be full of paper. All thechairs and tables were pushed back against the wall, and the bric-a-bracwas stacked on the mantel. 

"Half an hour yet, " Dal said, closing his watch. "Plenty of time, andremember the signal, four short and two long. "

"Four short and two long--all right, sir. "

"And--Flannigan, here's something for you, on account. "

"Thank you, sir. "

Dal turned to go out, tripped over the rug, said something, and passedme without an idea of my presence. A moment later Flannigan went out, and I was left, huddled against the wall, and alone. 

It was puzzling enough. "Four long and two short!" "All but the powder!"Not that I believed for a moment what Max had said, and anyhow Flanniganwas the sanest person I ever saw in my life. But it all seemed a partof the mystery that had been hanging over us for several days. I felt myway across the room and knelt by the pans. Yes, they were there, full ofpaper and mounted on bricks. It had not been a delusion. 

And then I straightened on my knees suddenly, for an automobile passingunder the windows had sounded four short honks and two long ones. Thesignal was followed instantly by a crash. The foot bath had fallen fromits supports, and lay, quivering and vibrating with horrid noises at myfeet. The next moment Mr. Harbison had thrown open the door and leapedinto the room. 

"Who's there?" he demanded. Against the light I could see him reachingfor his hip pocket, and the rest crowding up around him. 

"It's only me, " I quavered, "that is, I. The--the dish pan upset. "

"Dish pan!" Bella said from back in the crowd. "Kit, of course!"

Jim forced his way through then and turned on the lights. I have nodoubt I looked very strange, kneeling there on the bare floor, with arow of pans mounted on bricks behind me, and the furniture all piled onitself in a back corner. 

"Kit! What in the world--!" Jim began, and stopped. He stared from me tothe pans, to the windows, to the bric-a-brac on the mantel, and back tome. 

I sat stonily silent. Why should I explain? Whenever I got into afoolish position, and tried to explain, and tell how it happened, andwho was really to blame, they always brought it back to ME somehow. So Isat there on the floor and let them stare. And finally Lollie Mercer gother breath and said, "How perfectly lovely; it's a charade!"

And Anne guessed "kitchen" at once. "Kit, you know, and the pansand--all that, " she said vaguely. At that they all took to guessing! AndI sat still, until Mr. Harbison saw the storm in my eyes and came overto me. 

"Have you hurt your ankle?" he said in an undertone. "Let me help youup. "

"I am not hurt, " I said coldly, "and even if I were, it would beunnecessary to trouble you. "

"I can not help being troubled, " he returned, just as evenly. "'You see, it makes me ill for days if my car runs over a dog. '"

Luckily, at that moment Dal came in. He pushed his way through thecrowd without a word, shut off the lights, crashed through the pans andslammed the shutters closed. Then he turned and addressed the rest. 

"Of all the lunatics--!" he began, only there was more to it than that. "A fellow goes to all kinds of trouble to put an end to this miserablesituation, and the entire household turns out and sets to work tofrustrate the whole scheme. You LIKE to stay here, don't you, likechickens in a coop? Where's Flannigan?"

Nobody understood Dal's wrath then, but it seems he meant to arrangethe plot himself, and when it was ripe, and the hour nearly come, heintended to wager that he could break the quarantine, and to take anyodds he could get that he would free the entire party in half an hour. As for the plan itself, it was idiotically simple; we were perfectlydelighted when we heard it. It was so simple and yet so comprehensive. We didn't see how it COULD fail. Both the Mercer girls kissed Dal on thestrength of it, and Anne was furious. Jim was not so much pleased, forsome reason or other, and Mr. Harbison looked thoughtful rather thanmerry. Aunt Selina had gone to bed. 

The idea, of course, was to start an embryo fire just inside thewindows, in the pans, to feed it with the orange-fire powder that isused on the Fourth of July, and when we had thrown open the windows andyelled "fire" and all the guards and reporters had rushed to thefront of the house, to escape quietly by a rear door from the basementkitchen, get into machines Dal had in waiting, and lose ourselves asquickly as we could. 

You can see how simple it was. 

We were terribly excited, of course. Every one rushed madly for motorcoats and veils, and Dal shuffled the numbers so the people going thesame direction would have the same machine. We called to each other aswe dressed about Mamaroneck or Lakewood or wherever we happened to haverelatives. Everybody knew everybody else, and his friends. The Mercergirls were going to cruise until the trouble blew over, the Browns weregoing to Pinehurst, and Jim was going to Africa to hunt, if he could getout of the harbor. 

Only the Harbison man seemed to have no plans; quite suddenly with theworld so near again, the world of country houses and steam yachts andall the rest of it, he ceased to be one of us. It was not his world atall. He stood back and watched the kaleidoscope of our coats and veils, half-quizzically, but with something in his face that I had not seenthere before. If he had not been so self-reliant and big, I would havesaid he was lonely. Not that he was pathetic in any sense of the word. Of course, he avoided me, which was natural and exactly what I wished. Bella never was far from him and at the last she loaded him with herjewel case and a muff and traveling bag and asked him to her cousins' onLong Island. I felt sure he was going to decline, when he glanced acrossat me. 

"Do go, " I said, very politely. "They are charming people. " And heaccepted at once!

It was a transparent plot on Bella's part: Two elderly maiden ladies, house miles from anywhere, long evenings in the music room with an openfire and Bella at the harp playing the two songs she knows. 

When we were ready and gathered in the kitchen, in the darkness, ofcourse, Dal went up on the roof and signaled with a lantern to the carson the drive. Then he went downstairs, took a last look at the drawingroom, fired the papers, shook on the powder, opened the windows andyelled "fire!"

Of course, huddled in the kitchen we had heard little or nothing. But weplainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the second yelling"fire, " and the patter of feet as the guards ran to the front of thehouse. And at that instant we remembered Aunt Selina!

That was the cause of the whole trouble. I don't know why they turned onme; she wasn't my aunt. But by the time we had got her out of bed, andhad wrapped her in an eiderdown comfort, and stuck slippers on her feetand a motor veil on her head, the glare at the front of the house wasbeginning to die away. She didn't understand at all and we had no timeto explain. I remember that she wanted to go back and get her "plate, "whatever that may be, but Jim took her by the arm and hurried her along, and the rest, who had waited, and were in awful tempers, stood aside andlet them out first. 

The door to the area steps was open, and by the street lights we couldsee a fence and a gate, which opened on a side street. Jim and AuntSelina ran straight for the gate; the wind blowing Aunt Selina's comfortlike a sail. Then, with our feet, so to speak, on the first rungs of theladder of Liberty, it slipped. A half-dozen guards and reporters camearound the house and drove us back like sheep into a slaughter pen. Itwas the most humiliating moment of my life. 

Dal had been for fighting a way through, and just for a minute I thinkI went Berserk myself. But Max spied one of the reporters setting up aflash light as we stood, undecided, at the top of the steps, and afterthat there was nothing to do but retreat. We backed down slowly, to showthem we were not afraid. And when we were all in the kitchen again, andhad turned on the lights and Bella was crying with her head against Mr. Harbison's arm, Dal said cheerfully, "Well, it has done some good, anyhow. We have lost Aunt Selina. "

And we all shook hands on it, although we were sorry about Jim. And Dalsaid we would have some champagne and drink to Aunt Selina's comfort, and we could have her teeth fumigated and send them to her. Somebodysaid "Poor old Jim, " and at that Bella looked up. 

She stared around the group, and then she went quite pale. 

"Jim!" she gasped. "Do you mean--that Jim is--out there too?"

"Jim and Aunt Selina!" I said as calmly as I could for joy. You can seehow it simplified the situation for me. "By this time they are a mileaway, and going!"

Everybody shook hands again except Bella. She had dropped into a chair, and sat biting her lip and breathing hard, and she would not join in anyof the hilarity at getting rid of Aunt Selina. Finally she got up andknocked over her chair. 

"You are a lot of cowards, " she stormed. "You deserted them out there, left them. Heaven knows where they are--a defenseless old woman, and--and a man who did not even have an overcoat. And it is snowing!"

"Never mind, " Dal said reassuringly. "He can borrow Aunt Selina'scomfort. Make the old lady discard from weakness. Anyhow, Bella, if Iknow anything of human nature, the old lady will make it hot enough forhim. Poor old Jim!"

Then they shook hands again, and with that there came a terrible bangingat the door, which we had locked. 

"Open the door!" some one commanded. It was one of the guards. 

"Open it yourself!" Dallas called, moving a kitchen table to reenforcethe lock. 

"Open that door or we will break it in!"

Dallas put his hands in his pockets, seated himself on the table, andwhistled cheerfully. We could hear them conferring outside, and theymade another appeal which was refused. Suddenly Bella came over andconfronted Dallas. 

"They have brought them back!" she said dramatically. "They are outthere now; I distinctly heard Jim's voice. Open that door, Dallas!"

"Oh, DON'T let them in!" I wailed. It was quite involuntary, but thedisappointment was too awful. "Dallas, DON'T open that door!"

Dal swung his feet and smiled from Bella to me. 

"Think what a solution it is to all our difficulties, " he said easily. "Without Aunt Selina I could be happy here indefinitely. "

There was more knocking, and somebody--Max, I think--said to let themin, that it was a fool thing anyhow, and that he wanted to go to bed andforget it; his feet were cold. And just then there was a crash, and partof one of the windows fell in. The next blow from outside brought therest of the glass, and--somebody was coming through, feet first. It wasJim. 

He did not speak to any of us, but turned and helped in a bundle of redand yellow silk comfort that proved to be Aunt Selina, also feet first. I had a glimpse of a half-dozen heads outside, guards and reporters. Then Jim jerked the shade down and unswathed Aunt Selina's legs sothat she could walk, offered his arm, and stalked past us and upstairs, without a word!

None of us spoke. We turned out the lights and went upstairs and tookoff our wraps and went to bed. It had been almost a fiasco. 

Chapter XV. SUSPICION AND DISCORD

Every one was nasty the next morning. Aunt Selina declared that herfeet were frost-bitten and kept Bella rubbing them with ice water allmorning. And Jim was impossible. He refused to speak to any of us and hewatched Bella furtively, as if he suspected her of trying to get him outof the house. 

When luncheon time came around and he had shown no indication of goingto the telephone and ordering it, we had a conclave, and Max was chosento remind him of the hour. Jim was shut in the studio, and we waitedtogether in the hall while Max went up. When he came down he wassomewhat ruffled. 

"He wouldn't open the door, " he reported, "and when I told him it wasmeal time, he said he wasn't hungry, and he didn't give a whoop aboutthe rest of us. He had asked us here to dinner; he hadn't proposed toadopt us. "

So we finally ordered luncheon ourselves, and about two o'clock Jim camedownstairs sheepishly, and ate what was left. Anne declared that Bellahad been scolding him in the upper hall, but I doubted it. She was neverseen to speak to him unnecessarily. 

The excitement of the escape over, Mr. Harbison and I remained on termsof armed neutrality. And Max still hunted for Anne's pearls, using them, the men declared, as a good excuse to avoid tinkering with the furnaceor repairing the dumb waiter, which took the queerest notions, andstopped once, half-way up from the kitchen, for an hour, with the dinneron it. Anyhow, Max was searching the house systematically, armed witha copy of Poe's Purloined Letter and Gaboriau's Monsieur LeCoq. He wentthrough the seats of the chairs with hatpins, tore up the beds, andlifted rugs, until the house was in a state of confusion. And the nextday, the fourth, he found something--not much, but it was curious. Hehad been in the studio, poking around behind the dusty pictures, withJimmy expostulating every time he moved anything and the rest standingaround watching him. 

Max was strutting. 

"We get it by elimination, " he said importantly. "The pearls beingnowhere else in the house, they must be here in the studio. Three partsof the studio having yielded nothing, they must be in the fourth. Ladiesand gentlemen, let me have your attention for one moment. I tap thiscanvas with my wand--there is nothing up my sleeve. Then I prepareto move the canvas--so. And I put my hand in the pocket of thisdisreputable velvet coat, so. Behold!"

Then he gave a low exclamation and looked at something he held in hishand. Every one stepped forward, and on his palm was the small diamondclasp from Anne's collar!

Jimmy was apoplectic. He tried to smile, but no one else did. 

"Well, I'll be flabbergasted!" he said. "I say, you people, you don'tthink for a minute that I put that thing there? Why, I haven't worn thatcoat for a month. It's--it's a trick of yours, Max. "

But Max shook his head; he looked stupefied, and stood gazing from theclasp to the pocket of the old painting coat. Betty dropped on a foldingstool, that promptly collapsed with her and created a welcome diversion, while Anne pounced on the clasp greedily, with a little cry. 

"We will find it all now, " she said excitedly. "Did you look in theother pockets, Max?"

Then, for the first time, I was conscious of an air of constraint amongthe men. Dallas was whistling softly, and Mr. Harbison, havingrescued Betty, was standing silent and aloof, watching the scenewith non-committal eyes. It was Max who spoke first, after a hurriedinventory of the other pockets. 

"Nothing else, " he said constrainedly. "I'll move the rest of thecanvases. "

But Jim interfered, to every one's surprise. 

"I wouldn't, if I were you, Max. There's nothing back there. I had 'emout yesterday. " He was quite pale. 

"Nonsense!" Max said gruffly. "If it's a practical joke, Jim, why don'tyou fess up? Anne has worried enough. "

"The pearls are not there, I tell you, " Jim began. Although the studiowas cold, there were little fine beads of moisture on his face. "I mustask you not to move those pictures. " And then Aunt Selina came to therescue; she stalked over and stood with her back against the stack ofcanvases. 

"As far as I can understand this, " she declaimed, "you gentlemen aretrying to intimate that James knows something of that young woman'sjewelry, because you found part of it in his pocket. Certainly you willnot move the pictures. How do you know that the young gentleman who saidhe found it there didn't have it up his sleeve?"

She looked around triumphantly, and Max glowered. Dallas soothed her, however. 

"Exactly so, " he said. "How do we know that Max didn't have the claspup his sleeve? My dear lady, neither my wife nor I care anything for thepearls, as compared with the priceless pearl of peace. I suggest tea onthe roof; those in favor--? My arm, Miss Caruthers. "

It was all well enough for Jim to say later that he didn't dare to havethe canvases moved, for he had stuck behind them all sorts of chorusgirl photographs and life-class crayons that were not for Aunt Selina'seye, besides four empty siphons, two full ones, and three bottles ofwhisky. Not a soul believed him; there was a a new element of suspicionand discord in the house. 

Every one went up on the roof and left him to his mystery. Anne drankher tea in a preoccupied silence, with half-closed eyes, an attitudethat boded ill to somebody. The rest were feverishly gay, and AuntSelina, with a pair of arctics on her feet and a hot-water bottle at herback, sat in the middle of the tent and told me familiar anecdotes ofJimmy's early youth (had he known, he would have slain her). Betty andMr. Harbison had found a medicine ball, and were running around likea pair of children. It was quite certain that neither his escape fromdeath nor my accusation weighed heavily on him. 

While Aunt Selina was busy with the time Jim had swallowed an opensafety pin, and just as the pin had been coughed up, or taken out ofhis nose--I forget which--Jim himself appeared and sulkily demanded theprivacy of the roof for his training hour. 

Yes, he was training. Flannigan claimed to know the system that hadreduced the president to what he is, and he and Jim had a seance everyday which left Jim feeling himself for bruises all evening. He claimedto be losing flesh; he said he could actually feel it going, and he andFlannigan had spent an entire afternoon in the cellar three days beforewith a potato barrel, a cane-seated chair and a lamp. 

The whole thing had been shrouded in mystery. They sandpapered theinside of the barrel and took out all the nails, and when they hadfinished they carried it to the roof and put it in a corner behind thetent. Everybody was curious, but Flannigan refused any information aboutit, and merely said it was part of his system. Dal said that if HE hadanything like that in his system he certainly would be glad to get ridof it. 

At a quarter to six Jim appeared, still sullen from the events of theafternoon and wearing a dressing gown and a pair of slippers, Flanniganfollowing him with a sponge, a bucket of water and an armful of bathtowels. Everybody protested at having to move, but he was firm, and theyall filed down the stairs. I was the last, with Aunt Selina just aheadof me. At the top of the stairs, she turned around suddenly to me. 

"That policeman looks cruel, " she said. "What's more, he's been in abad humor all day. More than likely he'll put James flat on the roofand tramp on him, under pretense of training him. All policemen areinhuman. "

"He only rolls him over a barrel or something like that, " I protested. 

"James had a bump like an egg over his ear last night, " Aunt Selinainsisted, glaring at Flannigan's unconscious back. "I don't think it'ssafe to leave him. It is my time to relax for thirty minutes, or Iwould watch him. You will have to stay, " she said, fixing me with herimperious eyes. 

So I stayed. Jim didn't want me, and Flannigan muttered mutiny. Butit was easier to obey Aunt Selina than to clash with her, and anyhow Iwanted to see the barrel in use. 

I never saw any one train before. It is not a joyful spectacle. First, Flannigan made Jim run, around and around the roof. He said it stirredup his food and brought it in contact with his liver, to be digested. 

Flannigan, from meekness and submission, of a sort, in the kitchen, became an autocrat on the roof. 

"Once more, " he would say. "Pick up your feet, sir! Pick up your feet!"

And Jim would stagger doggedly past me, where I sat on the parapet, hispoor cheeks shaking and the tail of his bath robe wrapping itself aroundhis legs. Yes, he ran in the bath robe in deference to me. It seemsthere isn't much to a running suit. 

"Head up, " Flannigan would say. "Lift your knees, sir. Didn't you eversee a horse with string halt?"

He let him stop finally, and gave him a moment to get his breath. Thenhe set him to turning somersaults. They spread the cushions from thecouch in the tent on the roof, and Jim would poke his head down and saya prayer, and then curve over as gracefully as a sausage and come upgasping, as if he had been pushed off a boat. 

"Five pounds a day; not less, sir, " Flannigan said encouragingly. "You'll drop it in chunks. "

Jim looked at the tin as if he expected to see the chunks lying at hisfeet. 

"Yes, " he said, wiping the back of his neck. "If we're in here thirtydays that will be one hundred and fifty pounds. Don't forget to stop intime, Flannigan. I don't want to melt away like a candle. "

He was cheered, however, by the promise of reduction. 

"What do you think of that, Kit?" he called to me. "Your uncle is goingto look as angular as a problem in geometry. I'll--I'll be the originalreductio ad absurdum. Do you want me to stand on my head, Flannigan?Wouldn't that reduce something?"

"Your brains, sir, " Flannigan retorted gravely, and presented a pair ofboxing gloves. Jim visibly quailed, but he put them on. 

"Do you know, Flannigan, " he remarked, as he fastened them, "I'mthinking of wearing these all the time. They hide my character. "

Flannigan looked puzzled, but he did not ask an explanation. He demandedthat Jim shed the bath robe, which he finally did, on my promise towatch the sunset. Then for fully a minute there was no sound save offeet running rapidly around the roof, and an occasional soft thud. Eachthud was accompanied by a grunt or two from Jim. Flannigan was grimlysilent. Once there was a smart rap, an oath from the policeman, and amirthless chuckle from Jim. The chuckle ended in a crash, however, and Iturned. Jim was lying on his back on the roof, and Flannigan was wipinghis ear with a towel. Jim sat up and ran his hand down his ribs. 

"They're all here, " he observed after a minute. "I thought I missedone. "

"The only way to take a man's weight down, " Flannigan said dryly. 

Jim got up dizzily. 

"Down on the roof, I suppose you mean, " he said. 

The next proceedings were mysterious. Flannigan rolled the barrel intothe tent, and carried in a small glass lamp. With the material at handhe seemed to be effecting a combination, no new one, to judge by hisfacility. Then he called Jim. 

At the door of the tent Jim turned to me, his bathrobe toga fashionaround his shoulders. 

"This is a very essential part of the treatment, " he said solemnly. "Theexercise, according to Flannigan, loosens up the adipose tissue. Thenext step is to boil it out. I hope, unless your instructions compelyou, that you will at least have the decency to stay out of the tent. "

"I am going at once, " I said, outraged. "I'm not here because I'm madabout it, and you know it. And don't pose with that bath robe. If youthink you're a character out of Roman history, look at your legs. "

"I didn't mean to offend you, " he said sulkily. "Only I'm tired ofhaving you choked down my throat every time I open my mouth, Kit. Anddon't go just yet. Flannigan is going for my clothes as soon as helights the--the lamp, and--somebody ought to watch the stairs. "

That was all there was to it. I said I would guard the steps, andFlannigan, having ignited the combination, whatever it was, wentdownstairs. How was I to know that Bella would come up when she did? Wasit my fault that the lamp got too high, and that Flannigan couldn'thear Jim calling? Or that just as Bella reached the top of the stepsJim should come to the door of the tent, wearing the barrel part of hishot-air cabinet, and yelling for a doctor?

Bella came to a dead stop on the upper step, with her mouth open. Shelooked at Jim, at the inadequate barrel, and from them she looked at me. Then she began to laugh, one of her hysterical giggles, and she turnedand went down again. As Jim and I stared at each other we could hear hergurgling down the hall below. 

She had violent hysterics for an hour, with Anne rubbing her foreheadand Aunt Selina burning a feather out of the feather duster under hernose. Only Jim and I understood, and we did not tell. Luckily, the nextthing that occurred drove Bella and her nerves from everybody's mind. 

At seven o'clock, when Bella had dropped asleep and everybody else wasdressed for dinner, Aunt Selina discovered that the house was cold, andordered Dal to the furnace. 

It was Dal's day at the furnace; Flannigan had been relieved of thatpart of the work after twice setting fire to a chimney. 

In five minutes Dal came back and spoke a few words to Max, who followedhim to the basement, and in ten minutes more Flannigan puffed up thesteps and called Mr. Harbison. 

I am not curious, but I knew that something had happened. While AuntSelina was talking suffrage to Anne--who said she had always beentremendously interested in the subject, and if women got the suffragewould they be allowed to vote?--I slipped back to the dining room. 

The table was laid for dinner, but Flannigan was not in sight. I couldhear voices from somewhere, faint voices that talked rapidly, and aftera while I located the sounds under my feet. The men were all in thebasement, and something must have happened. I flew back to the basementstairs, to meet Mr. Harbison at the foot. He was grimy and dusty, with streaks of coal dust over his face, and he had been examining hisrevolver. I was just in time to see him slip it into his pocket. 

"What is the matter?" I demanded. "Is any one hurt?"

"No one, " he said coolly. "We've been cleaning out the furnace. "

"With a revolver! How interesting--and unusual!" I said dryly, andslipped past him as he barred the way. He was not pleased; I heard himmutter something and come rapidly after me, but I had the voices as aguide, and I was not going to be turned back like a child. The men hadgathered around a low stone arch in the furnace room, and were lookingdown a short flight of steps, into a sort of vault, evidently under thepavement. A faint light came from a small grating above, and there was aclose, musty smell in the air. 

"I tell you it must have been last night, " Dallas was saying. "Wilsonand I were here before we went to bed, and I'll swear that hole was notthere then. "

"It was not there this morning, sir, " Flannigan insisted. "It has beenmade during the day. "

"And it could not have been done this afternoon, " Mr. Harbison saidquietly. "I was fussing with the telephone wire down here. I would haveheard the noise. "

Something in his voice made me look at him, and certainly his expressionwas unusual. He was watching us all intently while Dallas pointed out tome the cause of the excitement. From the main floor of the furnace room, a flight of stone steps surmounted by an arch led into the coal cellar, beneath the street. The coal cellar was of brick, with a cement floor, and in the left wall there gaped an opening about three feet by three, leading into a cavernous void, perfectly black--evidently a similarvault belonging to the next house. 

The whole place was ghostly, full of shadows, shivery withpossibilities. It was Mr. Harbison finally who took Jim's candle andcrawled through the aperture. We waited in dead silence, listening tohis feet crunching over the coal beyond, watching the faint yellow lightthat came through the ragged opening in the wall. Then he came back andcalled through to us. 

"Place is locked, over here, " he said. "Heavy oak door at the head ofthe steps. Whoever made that opening has done a prodigious amount oflabor for nothing. "

The weapon, a crowbar, lay on the ground beside the bricks, and hepicked it up and balanced it on his hand. Dallas' florid face was almostcomical in his bewilderment; as for Jimmy--he slammed a piece of slag atthe furnace and walked away. At the door he turned around. 

"Why don't you accuse me of it?" he asked bitterly. "Maybe you couldfind a lump of coal in my pockets if you searched me. "

He stalked up the stairs then and left us. Dallas and I went uptogether, but we did not talk. There seemed to be nothing to say. Notuntil I had closed and locked the door of my room did I venture to lookat something that I carried in the palm of my hand. It was a watch, notrunning--a gentleman's flat gold watch, and it had been hanging by itsfob to a nail in the bricks beside the aperture. 

In the back of the watch were the initials, T. H. H. And the picture of agirl, cut from a newspaper. 

It was my picture. 

Chapter XVI. I FACE FLANNIGAN

Dinner waited that night while everybody went to the coal cellar andstared at the hole in the wall, and watched while Max took a tracing ofit and of some footprints in the coal dust on the other side. 

I did not go. I went into the library with the guilty watch in the foldof my gown, and found Mr. Harbison there, staring through the Februarygloom at the blank wall of the next house, and quite unconscious of thereporter with a drawing pad just below him in the area-way. I went overand closed the shutters before his very eyes, but even then he did notmove. 

"Will you be good enough to turn around?" I demanded at last. 

"Oh!" he said wheeling. "Are YOU here?"

There wasn't any reply to that, so I took the watch and placed it on thelibrary table between us. The effect was all that I had hoped. He staredat it for an instant, then at me, and with his hand outstretched for it, stopped. 

"Where did you find it?" he asked. I couldn't understand his expression. He looked embarrassed, but not at all afraid. 

"I think you know, Mr. Harbison, " I retorted. 

"I wish I did. You opened it?"

"Yes. "

We stood looking at each other across the table. It was his glance thatwavered. 

"About the picture--of you, " he said at last. "You see, down there inSouth America, a fellow hasn't much to do in the evenings, and a--a chumof mine and I--we were awfully down on what we called the plutocrats, the--the leisure classes. And when that picture of yours came in thepaper, we had--we had an argument. He said--" He stopped. 

"What did he say?"

"Well, he said it was the picture of an empty-faced society girl. "

"Oh!" I exclaimed. 

"I--I maintained there were possibilities in the face. " He put bothhands on the table, and, bending forward, looked down at me. "Well, Iwas a fool, I admit. I said your eyes were kind and candid, in spite ofthat haughty mouth. You see, I said I was a fool. "

"I think you are exceedingly rude, " I managed finally. "If you want toknow where I found your watch, it was down in the coal cellar. Andif you admit you are an idiot, I am not. I--I know all about Bella'sbracelet--and the board on the roof, and--oh, if you would onlyleave--Anne's necklace--on the coal, or somewhere--and get away--"

My voice got beyond me then, and I dropped into a chair and covered myface. I could feel him staring at the back of my head. 

"Well, I'll be--" something or other, he said finally, and then heturned on his heel and went out. By the time I got my eyes dry (yes, Iwas crying; I always do when I am angry) I heard Jim coming downstairs, and I tucked the watch out of sight. Would anyone have foreseen thetrouble that watch would make!

Jim was sulky. He dropped into a chair and stretched out his legs, looking gloomily at nothing. Then he got up and ambled into his den, closing the door behind him without having spoken a word. It was morethan human nature could stand. 

When I went into the den he was stretched on the davenport with his faceburied in the cushions. He looked absolutely wilted, and every line ofhim was drooping. 

"Go on out, Kit, " he said, in a smothered voice. "Be a good girl anddon't follow me around. "

"You are shameless!" I gasped. "Follow you! When you are hung aroundmy neck like a--like a--" Millstone was what I wanted to say, but Icouldn't think of it. 

He turned over and looked up from his cushions like an ill-treated andsuffering cherub. 

"I'm done for, Kit, " he groaned. "Bella went up to the studio after weleft, and investigated that corner. "

"What did she find? The necklace?" I asked eagerly. He was too wretchedto notice this. 

"No, that picture of you that I did last winter. She is crazy--she saysshe is going upstairs and sit in Takahiro's room and take smallpox anddie. "

"Fiddlesticks!" I said rudely, and somebody hammered on the door andopened it. 

"Pardon me for disturbing you, " Bella said, in her bestdear-me-I'm-glad-I-knocked manner. "But--Flannigan says the dinner hasnot come. "

"Good Lord!" Jim exclaimed. "I forgot to order the confounded dinner!"

It was eight o'clock by that time, and as it took an hour at leastafter telephoning the order, everybody looked blank when they heard. Theentire family, except Mr. Harbison, who had not appeared again, escortedJim to the telephone and hung around hungrily, suggesting new dishesevery minute. And then--he couldn't raise Central. It was fifteenminutes before we gave up, and stood staring at one anotherdespairingly. 

"Call out of a window, and get one of those infernal reporters todo something useful for once, " Max suggested. But he was indignantlyhushed. We would have starved first. Jim was peering into thetransmitter and knocking the receiver against his hand, like a watchthat had stopped. But nothing happened. Flannigan reported a box ofbreakfast food, two lemons, and a pineapple cheese, a combination thatdidn't seem to lend itself to anything. 

We went back to the dining room from sheer force of habit and sat aroundthe table and looked at the lemonade Flannigan had made. Anne WOULD talkabout the salad her last cook had concocted, and Max told about a littletown in Connecticut where the restaurant keeper smokes a corn-cob pipewhile he cooks the most luscious fried clams in America. And Aunt Selinarelated that in her family they had a recipe for chicken smothered incream. And then we sipped the weak lemonade and nibbled at the cheese. 

"To change this gridiron martyrdom, " Dallas said finally, "where'sHarbison? Still looking for his watch?"

"Watch!" Everybody said it in a different tone. 

"Sure, " he responded. "Says his watch was taken last night from thestudio. Better get him down to take a squint at the telephone. Likely hecan fix it. "

Flannigan was beside me with the cheese. And at that moment I felt Mr. Harbison's stolen watch slip out of my girdle, slide greasily acrossmy lap, and clatter to the floor. Flannigan stooped, but luckily it hadgone under the table. To have had it picked up, to have had to explainhow I got it, to see them try to ignore my picture pasted in it--oh, itwas impossible! I put my foot over it. 

"Drop something?" Dallas asked perfunctorily, rising. Flannigan wasstill half kneeling. 

"A fork, " I said, as easily as I could, and the conversation went on. But Flannigan knew, and I knew he knew. He watched my every movementlike a hawk after that, standing just behind my chair. I dropped myuseless napkin, to have it whirled up before it reached the floor. Isaid to Betty that my shoe buckle was loose, and actually got the watchin my hand, only to let it slip at the critical moment. Then they allgot up and went sadly back to the library, and Flannigan and I facedeach other. 

Flannigan was not a handsome man at any time, though up to then he hadat least looked amiable. But now as I stood with my hand on the back ofmy chair, his face grew suddenly menacing. The silence was absolute. I was the guiltiest wretch alive, and opposite me the law towered andglowered, and held the yellow remnant of a pineapple cheese! And in thesilence that wretched watch lay and ticked and ticked and ticked. ThenFlannigan creaked over and closed the door into the hall, came back, picked up the watch, and looked at it. 

"You're unlucky, I'm thinkin', " he said finally. "You've got the nerveall right, but you ain't cute enough. "

"I don't know what you mean, " I quavered. "Give me that watch to returnto Mr. Harbison. "

"Not on your life, " he retorted easily. "I give it back myself, likeI did the bracelet, and--like I'm going to give back the necklace, ifyou'll act like a sensible little girl. "

I could only choke. 

"It's foolish, any way you look at it, " he persisted. "Here you are, lots of friends, folks that think you're all right. Why, I reckon thereisn't one of them that wouldn't lend you money if you needed it so bad. "

"Will you be still?" I said furiously. "Mr. Harbison left thatwatch--with me--an hour ago. Get him, and he will tell you so himself!"

"Of course he would, " Flannigan conceded, looking at me with grudgingapproval. "He wouldn't be what I think he is, if he didn't lie up anddown for you. " There were voices in the hall. Flannigan came closer. "An hour ago, you say. And he told me it was gone this morning! It'sa losing game, miss. I'll give you twenty-four hours and then--thenecklace, if you please, miss. "

Chapter XVII. A CLASH AND A KISS

The clash that came that evening had been threatening for some time. Take an immovable body, represented by Mr. Harbison and his square jaw, and an irresistible force, Jimmy and his weight, and there is bound tobe trouble. 

The real fault was Jim's. He had gone entirely mad again over Bella, andthrown prudence to the winds. He mooned at her across the dinner table, and waylaid her on the stairs or in the back halls, just to hear hervoice when she ordered him out of her way. He telephoned for flowers andcandy for her quite shamelessly, and he got out a book of photographsthat they had taken on their wedding journey, and kept it on the librarytable. The sole concession he made to our presumptive relationship wasto bring me the responsibility for everything that went wrong, and hisshirts for buttons. 

The first I heard of the trouble was from Dal. He waylaid me in the hallafter dinner that night, and his face was serious. 

"I'm afraid we can't keep it up very long, Kit, " he said. "With Jimtrailing Bella all over the house, and the old lady keener every day, it's bound to come out somehow. And that isn't all. Jim and Harbison hada set-to today--about you. "

"About me!" I repeated. "Oh, I dare say I have been falling short again. What was Jim doing? Abusing me?"

Dal looked cautiously over his shoulder, but no one was near. 

"It seems that the gentle Bella has been unusually beastly today to Jim, and--I believe she's jealous of you, Kit. Jim followed her up to theroof before dinner with a box of flowers, and she tossed them over theparapet. She said, I believe, that she didn't want his flowers; he couldbuy them for you, and be damned to him, or some lady-like equivalent. "

"Jim is a jellyfish, " I said contemptuously. "What did he say?"

"He said he only cared for one woman, and that was Bella; that he neverhad really cared for you and never would, and that divorce courts werenot unmitigated evils if they showed people the way to real happiness. Which wouldn't amount to anything if Harbison had not been in the tent, trying to sleep!"

Dal did not know all the particulars, but it seems that relationsbetween Jim and Mr. Harbison were rather strained. Bella had left theroof and Jim and the Harbison man came face to face in the door of thetent. According to Dal, little had been said, but Jim, bound by hispromise to me, could not explain, and could only stammer something aboutbeing an old friend of Miss Knowles. And Tom had replied shortly thatit was none of his business, but that there were some things friendshiphardly justified, and tried to pass Jim. Jim was instantly enraged; heblocked the door to the roof and demanded to know what the other manmeant. There were two or three versions of the answer he got. Thegeneral purport was that Mr. Harbison had no desire to explain further, and that the situation was forced on him. But if he insisted--when a mansystematically ignored and neglected his wife for some one else, therewere communities where he would be tarred and feathered. 

"Meaning me?" Jim demanded, apoplectic. 

"The remark was a general one, " Mr. Harbison retorted, "but if you wishto make a concrete application--!"

Dal had gone up just then, and found them glaring at each other, Jimwith his hands clenched at his sides, and Mr. Harbison with his armsfolded and very erect. Dal took Jim by the elbow and led him downstairs, muttering, and the situation was saved for the time. But Dal was notoptimistic. 

"You can do a bit yourself, Kit, " he finished. "Look more cheerful, flirt a little. You can do that without trying. Take Max on for a day orso; it would be charity anyhow. But don't let Tom Harbison take into hishead that you are grieving over Jim's neglect, or he's likely to tosshim off the roof. "

"I have no reason to think that Mr. Harbison cares one way or the otherabout me, " I said primly. "You don't think he's--he's in love with me, do you, Dal?" I watched him out of the corner of my eye, but he onlylooked amused. 

"In love with you!" he repeated. "Why bless your wicked little heart, no! He thinks you're a married woman! It's the principle of the thinghe's fighting for. If I had as much principle as he has, I'd--I'd put itout at interest. "

Max interrupted us just then, and asked if we knew where Mr. Harbisonwas. 

"Can't find him, " he said. "I've got the telephone together and haveenough left over to make another. Where do you suppose Harbison hidesthe tools? I'm working with a corkscrew and two palette knives. "

I heard nothing more of the trouble that night. Max went to Jim aboutit, and Jim said angrily that only a fool would interfere between a manand his wife--wives. Whereupon Max retorted that a fool and his wiveswere soon parted, and left him. The two principals were coldly civilto each other, and smaller issues were lost as the famine grew more andmore insistent. For famine it was. 

They worked the rest of the evening, but the telephone refused to reviveand every one was starving. Individually our pride was at low ebb, butcollectively it was still formidable. So we sat around and Jim playedGrieg with the soft stops on, and Aunt Selina went to bed. The weatherhad changed, and it was sleeting, but anything was better than thedrawing room. I was in a mood to battle with the elements or to cry--orboth--so I slipped out, while Dal was reciting "Give me three grainsof corn, mother, " threw somebody's overcoat over my shoulders, put on aman's soft hat--Jim's I think--and went up to the roof. 

It was dark in the third floor hall, and I had to feel my way to thefoot of the stairs. I went up quietly, and turned the knob of the doorto the roof. At first it would not open, and I could hear the windhowling outside. Finally, however, I got the door open a little andwormed my way through. It was not entirely dark out there, in spite ofthe storm. A faint reflection of the street lights made it possible todistinguish the outlines of the boxwood plants, swaying in the wind, andthe chimneys and the tent. And then--a dark figure disentangled itselffrom the nearest chimney and seemed to hurl itself at me. I rememberputting out my hands and trying to say something, but the figure caughtme roughly by the shoulders and knocked me back against the door frame. From miles away a heavy voice was saying, "So I've got you!" and thenthe roof gave from under me, and I was floating out on the storm, andsleet was beating in my face, and the wind was whispering over and over, "Open your eyes, for God's sake!"

I did open them after a while, and finally I made out that I was layingon the floor in the tent. The lights were on, and I had a cold and dampfeeling, and something wet was trickling down my neck. 

I seemed to be alone, but in a second somebody came into the tent, and Isaw it was Mr. Harbison, and that he had a double handful of half-meltedsnow. He looked frantic and determined, and only my sitting up quicklyprevented my getting another snow bath. My neck felt queer and stiff, and I was very dizzy. When he saw that I was conscious he dropped thesnow and stood looking down at me. 

"Do you know, " he said grimly, "that I very nearly choked you to death alittle while ago?"

"It wouldn't surprise me to be told so, " I said. "Do I know too much, orwhat is it, Mr. Harbison?" I felt terribly ill, but I would not let himsee it. "It is queer, isn't it--how we always select the roof for ourlittle--differences?" He seemed to relax somewhat at my gibe. 

"I didn't know it was you, " he explained shortly. "I was waitingfor--some one, and in the hat you wore and the coat, I mistook you. That's all. Can you stand?"

"No, " I retorted. I could, but his summary manner displeased me. Thesequel, however, was rather amazing, for he stooped suddenly and pickedme up, and the next instant we were out in the storm together. At thedoor he stooped and felt for the knob. 

"Turn it, " he commanded. "I can't reach it. "

"I'll do nothing of the kind, " I said shrewishly. "Let me down; I canwalk perfectly well. "

He hesitated. Then he slid me slowly to my feet, but he did not openthe door at once. "Are you afraid to let me carry you down those stairs, after--Tuesday night?" he asked, very low. "You still think I did that?"

I had never been less sure of it than at that moment, but an imp ofperversity made me retort, "Yes. "

He hardly seemed to hear me. He stood looking down at me as I leanedagainst the door frame. 

"Good Lord!" he groaned. "To think that I might have killed you!" Andthen--he stooped and suddenly kissed me. 

The next moment the door was open, and he was leading me down into thehouse. At the foot of the staircase he paused, still holding my hand, and faced me in the darkness. 

"I'm not sorry, " he said steadily. "I suppose I ought to be, but I'mnot. Only--I want you to know that I was not guilty--before. I didn'tintend to now. I am--almost as much surprised as you are. "

I was quite unable to speak, but I wrenched my hand loose. He steppedback to let me pass, and I went down the hall alone. 

Chapter XVIII. IT'S ALL MY FAULT

I didn't go to the drawing room again. I went into my own room and satin the dark, and tried to be furiously angry, and only succeeded infeeling queer and tingly. One thing was absolutely certain: not the sameman, but two different men had kissed me on the stairs to the roof. It sounds rather horrid and discriminating, but there was all thedifference in the world. 

But then--who had? And for whom had Mr. Harbison been waiting on theroof? "Did you know that I nearly choked you to death a few minutesago?" Then he rather expected to finish somebody in that way! Who? Jim, probably. It was strange, too, but suddenly I realized that no matterhow many suspicious things I mustered up against him--and there wereplenty--down in my heart I didn't believe him guilty of anything, exceptthis last and unforgivable offense. Whoever was trying to leave thehouse had taken the necklace, that seemed clear, unless Max was stillfoolishly trying to break quarantine and create one of the sensations heso dearly loves. This was a new idea, and some things upheld it, but Maxhad been playing bridge when I was kissed on the stairs, and there wasstill left that ridiculous incident of the comfort. 

Bella came up after I had gone to bed, and turned on the light to brushher hair. 

"If I don't leave this mausoleum soon, I'll be carried out, " shedeclared. "You in bed, Lollie Mercer and Dal flirting, Anne hysterical, and Jim making his will in the den! You will have to take Aunt Selinatonight, Kit; I'm all in. "

"If you'll put her to bed, I'll keep her there, " I conceded, after someparley. 

"You're a dear. " Bella came back from the door. "Look here, Kit, youknow Jim pretty well. Don't you think he looks ill? Thinner?"

"He's a wreck, " I said soberly. "You have a lot to answer for, Bella. "

Bella went over to the cheval glass and looked in it. "I avoid him allI can, " she said, posing. "He's awfully funny; he's so afraid I'll thinkhe's serious about you. He can't realize that for me he simply doesn'texist. "

Well, I took Aunt Selina, and about two o'clock, while I was in my firstsleep, I woke to find her standing beside me, tugging at my arm. 

"There's somebody in the house, " she whispered. "Thieves!"

"If they're in they'll not get out tonight, " I said. 

"I tell you, I saw a man skulking on the stairs, " she insisted. 

I got up ungraciously enough, and put on my dressing gown. Aunt Selina, who had her hair in crimps, tied a veil over her head, and together wewent to the head of the stairs. Aunt Selina leaned far over and peereddown. 

"He's in the library, " she whispered. "I can see a light. "

The lust of battle was in Aunt Selina's eye. She girded her robe abouther and began to descend the stairs cautiously. We went through the halland stopped at the library door. It was empty, but from the den beyondcame a hum of voices and the cheerful glow of fire light. I realized thesituation then, but it was too late. 

"Then why did you kiss her in the dining room?" Bella was saying in herclear, high tones. "You did, didn't you?"

"It was only her hand, " Jim, desperately explaining. "I've got to payher some attention, under the circumstances. And I give you my word, Iwas thinking of you when I did it. " THE WRETCH!

Aunt Selina drew her breath in suddenly. 

"I am thinking of marrying Reggie Wolfe. " This was Bella, of course. "Hewants me to. He's a dear boy. "

"If you do, I will kill him. "

"I am so very lonely, " Bella sighed. We could hear the creak of Jim'sshirt bosom that showed that he had sighed also. Aunt Selina had grippedme by the arm, and I could hear her breathing hard beside me. 

"It's only Jim, " I whispered. "I--I don't want to hear any more. "

But she clutched me firmly, and the next thing we heard was anothercreak, louder and--

"Get up! Get up off your knees this instant!" Bella was sayingfrantically. "Some one might come in. "

"Don't send me away, " Jim said in a smothered voice. "Every one in thehouse is asleep, and I love you, dear. "

Aunt Selina swallowed hard in the darkness. 

"You have no right to make love to me, " Bella. "It's--it's highlyimproper, under the circumstances. "

And then Jim: "You swallow a camel and stick at a gnat. Why did you meetme here, if you didn't expect me to make love to you? I've stood fora lot, Bella, but this foolishness will have to end. Either you loveme--or you don't. I'm desperate. " He drew a long, forlorn breath. 

"Poor old Jim!" This was Bella. A pause. Then--"Let my hand alone!" AlsoBella. 

"It is MY hand!"--Jim;'s most fatuous tone. "THERE is where you woremy ring. There's the mark still. " Sounds of Jim kissing Bella's ringfinger. "What did you do with it? Throw it away?" More sounds. 

Aunt Selina crossed the library swiftly, and again I followed. Bellawas sitting in a low chair by the fire, looking at the logs, in the mostexquisite negligee of pink chiffon and ribbon. Jim was on his knees, staring at her adoringly, and holding both her hands. 

"I'll tell you a secret, " Bella was saying, looking as coy as she knewhow--which was considerable. "I--I still wear it, on a chain around myneck. "

On a chain around her neck! Bella, who is decollete whenever it isallowable, and more than is proper!

That was the limit of Aunt Selina's endurance. Still holding me, shestepped through the doorway and into the firelight, a fearful figure. 

Jim saw her first. He went quite white and struggled to get up, smiling a sickly smile. Bella, after her first surprise, was superblyindifferent. She glanced at us, raised her eyebrows, and then looked atthe clock. 

"More victims of insomnia!" she said. "Won't you come in? Jim, pull up achair by the fire for your aunt. "

Aunt Selina opened her mouth twice, like a fish, before she could speak. Then--

"James, I demand that that woman leave the house!" she said hoarsely. 

Bella leaned back and yawned. 

"James, shall I go?" she asked amiably. 

"Nonsense, " Jim said, pulling himself together as best he could. "Lookhere, Aunt Selina, you know she can't go out, and what's more, I--don'twant her to go. "

"You--what?" Aunt Selina screeched, taking a step forward. "You have theaudacity to say such a thing to me!"

Bella leaned over and gave the fire log a punch. 

"I was just saying that he shouldn't say such things to me, either, "she remarked pleasantly. "I'm afraid you'll take cold, Miss Caruthers. Wouldn't you like a hot sherry flip?"

Aunt Selina gasped. Then she sat down heavily on one of the carvedteakwood chairs. 

"He said he loved you; I heard him, " she said weakly. "He--he was goingto put his arm around you!"

"Habit!" Jim put in, trying to smile. "You see, Aunt Selina, it's--well, it's a habit I got into some time ago, and I--my arm does it without mythinking about it. "

"Habit!" Aunt Selina repeated, her voice thick with passion. Then sheturned to me. "Go to your room at once!" she said in her most awfultone. "Go to your room and leave this--this shocking affair to me. "

But if she had reached her limit, so had I. If Jim chose to ruinhimself, it was not my fault. Any one with common sense would have knownat least to close the door before he went down on his knees, no matterto whom. So when Aunt Selina turned on me and pointed in the directionof the staircase, I did not move. 

"I am perfectly wide awake, " I said coldly. "I shall go to bed when I amentirely ready, and not before. And as for Jim's conduct, I do not knowmuch about the conventions in such cases, but if he wishes to embraceMiss Knowles, and she wants him to, the situation is interesting, buthardly novel. "

Aunt Selina rose slowly and drew the folds of her dressing gown aroundher, away from the contamination of my touch. 

"Do you know what you are saying?" she demanded hoarsely. 

"I do. " I was quite white and stiff from my knees up, but below Iwas wavery. I glanced at Jim for moral support, but he was lookingidolatrously at Bella. As for her, quite suddenly she had dropped hermask of indifference; her face was strained and anxious, and there weredeep circles I had not seen before, under her eyes. And it was Bella whofinally threw herself into the breach--the family breach. 

"It is all my fault, Miss Caruthers, " she said, stepping between AuntSelina and myself. "I have been a blind and wicked woman, and I havealmost wrecked two lives. "

Two! What of mine?

"You see, " she struggled on, against the glint in Aunt Selina's eyes. "I--I did not realize how much I cared, until it was too late. I did somany things that were cruel and wrong--oh, Jim, Jim!"

She turned and buried her head on his shoulder and cried; real tears. Icould hardly believe that it was Bella. And Jim put both his arms aroundher and almost cried, too, and looked nauseatingly happy with the eyehe turned to Bella, and scared to death out of the one he kept on AuntSelina. 

She turned on me, as of course I knew she would. 

"That, " she said, pointing at Jim and Bella, "that shameful pictureis due to your own indifference. I am not blind; I have seen how yourejected all his loving advances. " Bella drew away from Jim, buthe jerked her back. "If anything in the world would reconcile me todivorce, it is this unbelievable situation. James, are you shameless?"

But James was and didn't care who knew it. And as there was nothing elseto do, and no one else to do it, I stood very straight against the doorframe, and told the whole miserable story from the very beginning. Itold how Dal and Jim had persuaded me, and how I had weakened and foundit was too late, and how Bella had come in that night, when she had nobusiness to come, and had sat down in the basement kitchen on my handsand almost turned me into a raving maniac. As I went on I became fluent;my sense of injury grew on me. I made it perfectly clear that I hatedthem all, and that when people got divorces they ought to know their ownminds and stay divorced. And at that a great light broke on Aunt Selina, who hadn't understood until that minute. 

In view of her principles, she might have been expected to turn on Jimand Bella, and disinherit them, and cast them out, figuratively, withthe flaming sword of her tongue. BUT SHE DID NOT!

She turned on me in the most terrible way, and asked me how I dared tocome between husband and wife, because divorce or no divorce, whom Godhath joined together, and so on. And when Jim picked up his courage inboth hands and tried to interfere, she pushed him back with one handwhile she pointed the other at me and called me a Jezebel. 

Chapter XIX. THE HARBISON MAN

She talked for an hour, having got between me and the door, and shescolded Jim and Bella thoroughly. But they did not hear it, beingoccupied with each other, sitting side by side meekly on the divan withJim holding Bella's hand under a cushion. She said they would have to bevery good to make up for all the deception, but it was perfectlyclear that it was a relief to her to find that I didn't belong to herpermanently, and as I have said before, she was crazy about Bella. 

I sat back in a chair and grew comfortably drowsy in the monotony of hervoice. It was a name that brought me to myself with a jerk. 

"Mr. Harbison!" Aunt Selina was saying. "Then bring him down at once, James. I want no more deception. There is no use cleaning a house andleaving a dirty corner. "

"It will not be necessary for me to stay and see it swept, " I said, mustering the rags she had left of my self-respect, and trying to passher. But she planted herself squarely before me. 

"You can not stir up a dust like this, young woman, and leave otherpeople to sneeze in it, " she said grimly. And I stayed. 

I sat, very small, on a chair in a corner. I felt like Jezebel, orwhatever her name was, and now the Harbison man was coming, and hewas going to see me stripped of my pretensions to domesticity and of ahusband who neglected me. He was going to see me branded a living lie, and he would hate me because I had put him in a ridiculous position. Hewas just the sort to resent being ridiculous. 

Jim brought him down in a dressing gown and a state of bewilderment. It was plain that the memory of the afternoon still rankled, for he wasvery short with Jim and inclined to resent the whole thing. The clockin the hall chimed half after three as they came down the stairs, and Iheard Mr. Harbison stumble over something in the darkness and say thatif it was a joke, he wasn't in the humor for it. To which Jim retortedthat it wasn't anything resembling a joke, and for heaven's sake not towalk on his feet; he couldn't get around the furniture any faster. 

At the door of the den Mr. Harbison stopped, blinking in the light. Then, when he saw us, he tried to back himself and his dishabille outinto the obscurity of the library. But Aunt Selina was too quick forhim. 

"Come in, " she called, "I want you, young man. It seems that there areonly two fools in the house, and you are one. "

He straightened at that and looked bewildered, but he tried to smile. 

"I thought I was the only one, " he said. "Is it possible that there isanother?"

"I am the other, " she announced. I think she expected him to say"Impossible, " but, whatever he was, he was never banal. 

"Is that so?" he asked politely, trying to be interested and tounderstand at the same time. He had not seen me. He was gazing fixedlyat Bella, languishing on the divan and watching him with lowered lids, and he had given Jim a side glance of contempt. But now he saw me andhe colored under his tan. His neck blushed furiously, being much whiterthan his face. He kept his eyes on mine, and I knew that he was mutelyasking forgiveness. But the thought of what was coming paralyzed me. Myeyes were glued to his as they had been that first evening when he hadcalled me "Mrs. Wilson, " and after an instant he looked away, and hisface was set and hard. 

"It seems that we have all been playing a little comedy, Mr. Harbison, "Aunt Selina began, nasally sarcastic. "Or rather, you and I have beenthe audience. The rest have played. "

"I--I don't think I understand, " he said slowly. "I have seen verylittle comedy. "

"It was not well planned, " Aunt Selina retorted tartly. "The ideawas good, but the young person who was playing the part of Mrs. Wilson--overacted. "

"Oh, come, Aunt Selina, " Jim protested, "Kit was coaxed and cajoled intothis thing. Give me fits if you like; I deserve all I get. But let Kitalone--she did it for me. "

Bella looked over at me and smiled nastily. 

"I would stop doing things for Jim, Kit, " she said. "It is SOunprofitable. "

But Mr. Harbison harked back to Aunt Selina's speech. 

"PLAYING the part of Mrs. Wilson!" he repeated. "Do you mean--?"

"Exactly. Playing the part. She is not Mrs. Wilson. It seems that thathonor belonged at one time to Miss Knowles. I believe such things arenot unknown in New York, only why in the name of sense does a man wantto divorce a woman and then meet her at two o'clock in the morning tokiss the place where his own wedding ring used to rest?"

Jim fidgeted. Bella was having spasms of mirth to herself, but theHarbison man did not smile. He stood for a moment looking at the fire;then he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his dressing gown, andstalked over to me. He did not care that the others were watching andlistening. 

"Is it true?" he demanded, staring down at me. "You are NOT Mrs. Wilson?You are not married at all? All that about being neglected--and loathingHIM, and all that on the roof--there was no foundation of truth?"

I could only shake my head without looking up. There was no defense tobe made. Oh, I deserved the scorn in his voice. 

"They--they persuaded you, I suppose, and it was to help somebody? Itwas not a practical joke?"

"No, " I rallied a little spirit at that. It had been anything but ajoke. 

He drew a long breath. 

"I think I understand, " he said slowly, "but--you could have saved mesomething. I must have given you all a great deal of amusement. "

"Oh, no, " I protested. "I--I want to tell you--"

But he deliberately left me and went over to the door. There he turnedand looked down at Aunt Selina. He was a little white, but there was nopassion in his face. 

"Thank you for telling me all this, Miss Caruthers, " he said easily. "Now that you and I know, I'm afraid the others will miss their littlediversion. Good night. "

Oh, it was all right for Jim to laugh and say that he was only huffeda little and would be over it by morning. I knew better. There wassomething queer in his face as he went out. He did not even glance in mydirection. He had said very little, but he had put me as effectually inthe wrong as if he had not kissed me--deliberately kissed me--that veryevening, on the roof. 

I did not go to sleep again. I lay wretchedly thinking things over andtrying to remember who Jezebel was, and toward morning I distinctlyheard the knob of the door turn. I mistrusted my ears, however, and soI got up quietly and went over in the darkness. There was no soundoutside, but when I put my hand on the knob I felt it move under myfingers. The counter pressure evidently alarmed whoever it was, for theknob was released and nothing more happened. But by this time anythingso uncomplicated as the fumbling of a knob at night had no power todisturb me. I went back to bed. 

Chapter XX. BREAKING OUT IN A NEW PLACE

Hunger roused everybody early the next morning, Friday. Leila Mercer haddiscovered a box of bonbons that she had forgotten, and we divided themaround. Aunt Selina asked for the candied fruit and got it--quite athird of the box. We gathered in the lower hall and on the stairs andnibbled nauseating sweets while Mr. Harbison examined the telephone. 

He did not glance in my direction. Betty and Dal were helping him, andhe seemed very cheerful. Max sat with me on the stairs. Mr. Harbison hadjust unscrewed the telephone box from the wall and was squinting intoit, when Bella came downstairs. It was her first appearance, but as shewas always late, nobody noticed. When she stopped, just above us onthe stairs, however, we looked up, and she was holding to the rail andtrembling perceptibly. 

"Mr. Harbison, will you--can you come upstairs?" she asked. Her voicewas strained, almost reedy, and her lips were white. 

Mr. Harbison stared up at her, with the telephone box in his hands. 

"Why--er--certainly, " he said, "but, unless it's very important, I'dlike to fix this talking machine. We want to make a food record. "

"I'd like to break a food record, " Max put in, but Bella created adiversion by sitting down suddenly on the stair just above us, andburying her face in her handkerchief. 

"Jim is sick, " she said, with a sob. "He--he doesn't want anything toeat, and his head aches. He--said for me--to go away and let him die!"

Dal dropped the hammer immediately, and Lollie Mercer sat petrified, with a bonbon halfway to her mouth. For, of course, it was unexpected, finding sentiment of any kind in Bella, and none of them knew about thescene in the den in the small hours of the morning. 

"Sick!" Aunt Selina said, from a hall chair. "Sick! Where?"

"All over, " Bella quavered. "His poor head is hot, and he's thirsty, buthe doesn't want anything but water. "

"Great Scott!" Dal said suddenly. "Suppose he should--Bella, are youtelling us ALL his symptoms?"

Bella put down her handkerchief and got up. From her position on thestairs she looked down on us with something of her old haughty manner. 

"If he is ill, you may blame yourselves, all of you, " she said cruelly. "You taunted him with being--fat, and laughed at him, until he stoppedeating the things he should eat. And he has been exercising--on theroof, until he has worn himself out. And now--he is ill. He--he has arash. "

Everybody jumped at that, and we instinctively moved away from Bella. She was quite cold and scornful by that time. 

"A rash!" Max exclaimed. "What sort of rash?"

"I did not see it, " Bella said with dignity, and turning, she went upthe stairs. 

There was a great deal of excitement, and nobody except Mr. Harbison waswilling to go near Jim. He went up at once with Bella, while Max and Dalsat cravenly downstairs and wondered if we would all take it, and Annetold about a man she knew who had it, and was deaf and dumb and blindwhen he recovered. 

Mr. Harbison came down after a while, and said that the rash was there, right enough, and that Jim absolutely refused to be quarantined; that heinsisted that he always got a rash from early strawberries and that ifhe DID have anything, since they were so touchy he hoped they would allget it. If they locked him in he would kick the door down. 

We had a long conference in the hall, with Bella sitting red-eyed andobjecting to every suggestion we made. And finally we arranged toshut Jim up in one of the servants' bedrooms with a sheet wrung out ofdisinfectant hung over the door. Bella said she would sit outside inthe hall and read to him through the closed door, so finally he gavea grudging consent. But he was in an awful humor. Max and Dal put onrubber gloves and helped him over, and they said afterward that the wayhe talked was fearful. And there was a telephone in the maid's room, andhe kept asking for things every five minutes. 

When the doctor came he said it was too early to tell positively, and heordered him liquid diet and said he would be back that evening. 

Which--the diet--takes me back to the famine. After they had moved Jim, Mr. Harbison went back to the telephone, and found everything as itshould be. So he followed the telephone wire, and the rest followed him. I did not; he had systematically ignored me all morning, after havingdared to kiss me the night before. And any other man I know, afterlooking at me the way he had looked a dozen times, would have been atleast reasonably glad to find me free and unmarried. But it was clearthat he was not; I wondered if he was the kind of man who always makeslove to the other man's wife and runs like mad when she is left a widow, or gets a divorce. 

And just when I had decided that I hated him, and that there was one manI knew who would never make love to a woman whom he thought married andthen be very dignified and aloof when he found she wasn't, I heard whatwas wrong with the telephone wire. 

It had been cut! Cut through with a pair of silver manicure scissorsfrom the dressing table in Bella's room, where Aunt Selina slept! Thewire had been clipped where it came into the house, just under a window, and the scissors still lay on the sill. 

It was mysterious enough, but no one was interested in the mystery justthen. We wanted food, and wanted it at once. Mr. Harbison fixed thewire, and the first thing we did, of course, was to order something toeat. Aunt Selina went to bed just after luncheon with indigestion, tothe relief of every one in the house. She had been most unpleasant allmorning. 

When she found herself ill, however, she insisted on having Bella, andthat made trouble at once. We found Bella with her cheek against thedoor into Jim's room, looking maudlin while he shouted love messages toher from the other side. At first she refused to stir, but after Anneand Max had tried and failed, the rest of us went to her in a body andimplored her. We said Aunt Selina was in awful shape--which she was, asto temper--and that she had thrown a mustard plaster at Anne, which wastrue. 

So Bella went, grumbling, and Jim was a maniac. We had not thought itwould be so bad for Bella, but Aunt Selina fell asleep soon after shetook charge, holding Bella's hand, and slept for three hours and neverlet go!

About two that afternoon the sun came out, and the rest of us wentto the roof. The sleet had melted and the air was fairly warm. Twohousemaids dusting rugs on the top of the next house came over andstared at us, and somebody in an automobile down on Riverside Drivestood up and waved at us. It was very cheerful and hopelessly lonely. 

I stayed on the roof after the others had gone, and for some time Ithought I was alone. After a while, I got a whiff of smoke, and thenI saw Mr. Harbison far over in the corner, one foot on the parapet, moodily smoking a pipe. He was gazing out over the river, and paying noattention to me. This was natural, considering that I had hardly spokento him all day. 

I would not let him drive me away, so I sat still, and it grew darkerand colder. He filled his pipe now and then, but he never looked in mydirection. Finally, however, as it grew very dusk, he knocked the ashesout and came toward me. 

"I am going to make a request, Miss McNair, " he said evenly. "Pleasekeep off the roof after sunset. There are--reasons. " I had risen and waspreparing to go downstairs. 

"Unless I know the reasons, I refuse to do anything of the kind, " Iretorted. He bowed. 

"Then the door will be kept locked, " he rejoined, and opened it for me. He did not follow me, but stood watching until I was down, and I heardhim close the roof door firmly behind me. 

Chapter XXI. A BAR OF SOAP

Late that evening Betty Mercer and Dallas were writing verses ofcondolence to be signed by all of us and put under the door into Jim'sroom when Bella came running down the stairs. 

Dal was reading the first verse when she came. "Listen to this, Bella, "he said triumphantly:

 "There was a fat artist named Jas, Who cruelly called his friends nas. When, altho' shut up tight, He broke out over night With a rash that is maddening, he clas. "

Then he caught sight of Bella's face as she stood in the doorway, andstopped. 

"Jim is delirious!" she announced tragically. "You shut him in there allalone and now he's delirious. I'll never forgive any of you. "

"Delirious!" everybody exclaimed. 

"He was sane enough when I took him his chicken broth, " Mr. Harbisonsaid. "He was almost fluent. "

"He is stark, staring crazy, " Bella insisted hysterically. "I--I lockedthe door carefully when I went down to my dinner, and when I came upit--it was unlocked, and Jim was babbling on the bed, with a sheet overhis face. He--he says the house is haunted and he wants all the men tocome up and sit in the room with him. "

"Not on your life, " Max said. "I am young, and my career has only begun. I don't intend to be cut off in the flower of my youth. But I'll tellyou what I will do; I'll take him a drink. I can tie it to a pole orsomething. "

But Mr. Harbison did not smile. He was thoughtful for a minute. Then:

"I don't believe he is delirious, " he said quietly, "and I wouldn'tbe surprised if he has happened on something that--will be of generalinterest. I think I will stay with him tonight. "

After that, of course, none of the others would confess that he wasafraid, so with the South American leading, they all went upstairs. Thewomen of the party sat on the lower steps and listened, but everythingwas quiet. Now and then we could hear the sound of voices, and aftera while there was a rapid slamming of doors and the sound of some onerunning down to the second floor. Then quiet again. 

None of us felt talkative. Bella had followed the men up and had beenput out, and sat sniffling by herself in the den. Aunt Selina wasworking over a jig-saw puzzle in the library, and declaring that some ofit must be lost. Anne and Leila Mercer were embroidering, and Betty andI sat idle, our hands in our laps. The whole atmosphere of the housewas mysterious. Anne told over again of the strange noises the nighther necklace was stolen. Betty asked me about the time when the comfortslipped from under my fingers. And when, in the midst of the story, thetelephone rang, we all jumped and shrieked. 

In an hour or so they sent for Flannigan, and he went upstairs. He camedown again soon, however, and returned with something over his arm thatlooked like a rope. It seemed to be made of all kinds of things tiedtogether, trunk straps, clothesline, bed sheets, and something thatFlannigan pointed to with rage and said he hadn't been able to keep hisclothes on all day. He refused to explain further, however, and trailedthe nondescript article up the stairs. We could only gaze after him andwonder what it all meant. 

The conclave lasted far into the night. The feminine contingent went tobed, but not to sleep. Some time after midnight, Mr. Harbison and Maxwent downstairs and I could hear them rattling around testing windowsand burglar alarms. But finally every one settled down and the rest ofthe night was quiet. 

Betty Mercer came into my room the next morning, Sunday, and said AnneBrown wanted me. I went over at once, and Anne was sitting up in bed, crying. Dal had slipped out of the room at daylight, she said, andhadn't come back. He had thought she was asleep, but she wasn't, andshe knew he was dead, for nothing ever made Dal get up on Sunday beforenoon. 

There was no one moving in the house, and I hardly knew what to do. Itwas Betty who said she would go up and rouse Mr. Harbison and Max, whohad taken Jim's place in the studio. She started out bravely enough, butin a minute we heard her flying back. Anne grew perfectly white. 

"He's lying on the upper stairs!" Betty cried, and we all ran out. Itwas quite true. Dal was lying on the stairs in a bathrobe, with one ofJim's Indian war clubs in his hand. And he was sound asleep. 

He looked somewhat embarrassed when he roused and saw us standingaround. He said he was going to play a practical joke on somebodyand fell asleep in the middle of it. And Anne said he wasn't even anintelligent liar, and went back to bed in a temper. But Betty came inwith me, and we sat and looked at each other and didn't say much. Thesituation was beyond us. 

The doctor let Jim out the next day, there having been nothing thematter with him but a stomach rash. But Jim was changed; he moonedaround Bella, of course, as before, but he was abstracted at times, andall that day--Sunday--he wandered off by himself, and one would comeacross him unexpectedly in the basement or along some of the unused backhalls. 

Aunt Selina held service that morning. Jim said that he always had aprayer book, but that he couldn't find anything with so many peoplein the house. So Aunt Selina read some religious poetry out of thenewspapers, and gave us a valuable talk on Deception versus Honesty, with me as the illustration. 

Almost everybody took a nap after luncheon. I stayed in the den and readIbsen, and felt very mournful. And after Hedda had shot herself, I laydown on the divan and cried a little--over Hedda; she was young and itwas such a tragic ending--and then I fell asleep. 

When I wakened Mr. Harbison was standing by the table, and he heldmy book in his hands. In view of the armed neutrality between us, Iexpected to see him bow to me curtly, turn on his heel and leave theroom. Indeed, considering his state of mind the night before, I shouldhardly have been surprised if he had thrown Hedda at my head. (This isnot a pun. I detest them. ) But instead, when he heard me move he glancedover at me and even smiled a little. 

"She wasn't worth it, " he said, indicating the book. 

"Worth what?"

"Your tears. You were crying over it, weren't you?"

"She was very unhappy, " I asserted indifferently. "She was married andshe loved some one else. "

"Do you really think she did?" he asked. "And even so, was that areason?"

"The other man cared for her; he may not have been able to help it. "

"But he knew that she was married, " he said virtuously, and then hecaught my eye and he saw the analogy instantly, for he colored hotly andput down the book. 

"Most men argue that way, " I said. "They argue by the book, and--they doas they like. "

He picked up a Japanese ivory paper weight from the table, and stoodbalancing it across his finger. 

"You are perfectly right, " he said at last. "I deserve it all. Mygrievance is at myself. Your--your beauty, and the fact that I thoughtyou were unhappy, put me--beside myself. It is not an excuse; it is aweak explanation. I will not forget myself again. "

He was as abject as any one could have wished. It was my minute oftriumph, but I can not pretend that I was happy. Evidently it had beenonly a passing impulse. If he had really cared, now that he knew Iwas free, he would have forgotten himself again at once. Then a newexplanation occurred to me. Suppose it had been Bella all the time, andthe real shock had been to find that she had been married!

"The fault of the situation was really mine, " I said magnanimously;"I quite blame myself. Only, you must believe one thing. You neverfurnished us any amusement. " I looked at him sidewise. "The discoverythat Bella and Jim were once married must have been a great shock. "

"It was a surprise, " he replied evenly. His voice and his eyes wereinscrutable. He returned my glance steadily. It was infuriating to havegone half-way to meet him, as I had, and then to find him intrenched inhis self-sufficiency again. I got up. 

"It is unfortunate that our acquaintance has begun so unfavorably, " Iremarked, preparing to pass him. "Under other circumstances we mighthave been friends. "

"There is only one solace, " he said. "When we do not have friends, wecan not lose them. "

He opened the door to let me pass out, and as our eyes met, all thecoldness died out of his. He held out his hand, but I was hurt. Irefused to see it. 

"Kit!" he said unsteadily. "I--I'm an obstinate, pig-headed brute. I amsorry. Can't we be friends, after all?"

"'When we do not have friends we can not lose them, '" I replied withcool malice. And the next instant the door closed behind me. 

It was that night that the really serious event of the quarantineoccurred. 

We were gathered in the library, and everybody was deadly dull. AuntSelina said she had been reared to a strict observance of the Sabbath, and she refused to go to bed early. The cards and card tables were putaway and every one sat around and quarreled and was generally nasty, except Bella and Jim, who had gone into the den just after dinner andfirmly closed the door. 

I think it was just after Max proposed to me. Yes, he proposed to meagain that night. He said that Jim's illness had decided him; that anyof us might take sick and die, shut in that contaminated atmosphere, andthat if he did he wanted it all settled. And whether I took him or nothe wanted me to remember him kindly if anything happened. I reallyhated to refuse him--he was in such deadly earnest. But it was quiteunnecessary for him to have blamed his refusal, as he did, on Mr. Harbison. I am sure I had refused him plenty of times before I hadever heard of the man. Yes, it was just after he proposed to me thatFlannigan came to the door and called Mr. Harbison out into the hall. 

Flannigan--like most of the people in the house--always went to Mr. Harbison when there was anything to be done. He openly adored him, and--what was more--he did what Mr. Harbison ordered without a word, while the rest of us had to get down on our knees and beg. 

Mr. Harbison went out, muttering something about a storm coming up, andseeing that the tent was secure. Betty Mercer went with him. She hadbeen at his heels all evening, and called him "Tom" on every possibleoccasion. Indeed, she made no secret of it; she said that she was madabout him, and that she would love to live in South America, and havean Indian squaw for a lady's maid, and sit out on the veranda in theevenings and watch the Southern Cross shooting across the sky, and eattropical food from the quaint Indian pottery. She was not even dauntedwhen Dal told her the Southern Cross did not shoot, and that the foodwas probably canned corn on tin dishes. 

So Betty went with him. She wore a pale yellow dinner gown, with just asophisticated touch of black here and there, and cut modestly square inthe neck. Her shoulders are scrawny. And after they were gone--not hershoulders; Mr. Harbison and she--Aunt Selina announced that the next daywas Monday, that she had only a week's supply of clothing with her, andthat no policeman who ever swung a mace should wash her undergarmentsfor her. 

She paused a moment, but nobody offered to do it. Anne was reading DeMaupassant under cover of a table, and the rest pretended not to hear. After a pause, Aunt Selina got up heavily and went upstairs, coming downsoon after with a bundle covered with a green shawl, and with a whitebalbriggan stocking trailing from an opening in it. She paused at thelibrary door, surveyed the inmates, caught my unlucky eye and beckonedto me with a relentless forefinger. 

"We can put them to soak tonight, " she confided to me, "and tomorrowthey will be quite simple to do. There is no lace to speak of"--Dalraised his eyebrows--"and very little flouncing. "

Aunt Selina and I went to the laundry. It never occurred to any one thatBella should have gone; she had stepped into all my privileges--such asthey were--and assumed none of my obligations. Aunt Selina and I went tothe laundry. 

It is strange what big things develop from little ones. In this case itwas a bar of soap. And if Flannigan had used as much soap as he shouldhave instead of washing up the kitchen floor with cold dish water, itwould have developed sooner. The two most unexpected events of the wholequarantine occurred that night at the same time, one on the roof and onein the cellar. The cellar one, although curious, was not so serious asthe other, so it comes first. 

Aunt Selina put her clothes in a tub in the laundry and proceededto dress them like a vegetable. She threw in a handful of salt, somekerosene oil and a little ammonia. The result was villainous, but aftershe tasted it--or snuffed it--she said it needed a bar of soap cut up togive it strength--or flavor--and I went into the store room for it. 

The laundry soap was in a box. I took in a silver fork, for I hated totouch the stuff, and jabbed a bar successfully in the semi-darkness. Then I carried it back to the laundry and dropped it on the table. AuntSelina looked at the fork with disgust; then we both looked at the soap. ONE SIDE OF IT WAS COVERED WITH ROUND HOLES THAT CURVED AROUND ON EACHOTHER LIKE A COILED SNAKE. 

I ran back to the store room, and there, a little bit sticky andsmelling terribly of rosin, lay Anne's pearl necklace!

I was so excited that I seized Aunt Selina by the hands and danced herall over the place. Then I left her, trying to find her hair pins on thefloor, and ran up to tell the others. I met Betty in the hall and wavedthe pearls at her. But she did not notice them. 

"Is Mr. Harbison down there?" she asked breathlessly. "I left him on theroof and went down to my room for my scarf, and when I went back hehad disappeared. He--he doesn't seem to be in the house. " She triedto laugh, but her voice was shaky. "He couldn't have got down withoutpassing me, anyhow, " she supplemented. "I suppose I'm silly, but so manyqueer things have happened, Kit. "

"I wouldn't worry, Betty, " I soothed her. "He is big enough to take careof himself. And with the best intentions in the world, you can't havehim all the time, you know. "

She was too much startled to be indignant. She followed me into thelibrary, where the sight of the pearls produced a tremendous excitement, and then every one had to go down to the store room, and see where thenecklace had been hidden, and Max examined all the bars of soap forthumb prints. 

Mr. Harbison did not appear. Max commented on the fact caustically, but Dal hushed him up. And so, Anne hugging her pearls, and Aunt Selinahaving put a final seasoning of washing powder on the clothes in thetub, we all went upstairs to bed. It had been a long day, and themorning would at least bring bridge. 

I was almost ready for bed when Jim tapped at my door. I had been verycool to him since the night in the library when I was publicly stakedand martyred, and he was almost cringing when I opened the door. 

"What is it now?" I asked cruelly. "Has Bella tired of it already, orhas somebody else a rash?"

"Don't be a shrew, Kit, " he said. "I don't want you to do anything. Ionly--when did you see Harbison last?"

"If you mean 'last, '" I retorted, "I'm afraid I haven't seen the last ofhim yet. " Then I saw that he was really worried. "Betty was leading himto the roof, " I added. "Why? Is he missing?"

"He isn't anywhere in the house. Dal and I have been over every inchof it. " Max had come up, in a dressing gown, and was watching meinsolently. 

"I think we have seen the last of him, " he said. "I'm sorry, Kit, to nipthe little romance in the bud. The fellow was crazy about you--there'sno doubt of it. But I've been watching him from the beginning, and Ithink I'm upheld. Whether he went down the water spout, or across aboard to the next house--"

"I--I dislike him intensely, " I said angrily, "but you would not dare tosay that to his face. He could strangle you with one hand. "

Max laughed disagreeably. 

"Well, I only hope he is gone, " he threw at me over his shoulder, "Iwouldn't want to be responsible to your father if he had stayed. " I wasspeechless with wrath. 

They went away then, and I could hear them going over the house. Atone o'clock Jim went up to bed, the last, and Mr. Harbison had not beenfound. I did not see how they could go to bed at all. If he had escaped, then Max was right and the whole thing was heart-breaking. And if he hadnot, then he might be lying--

I got up and dressed. 

The early part of the night had been cloudy, but when I got to the roofit was clear starlight. The wind blew through the electric wiresstrung across and set them singing. The occasional bleat of a belatedautomobile on the drive below came up to me raucously. The tent gleamed, a starlit ghost of itself, and the boxwoods bent in the breeze. I wentover to the parapet and leaned my elbows on it. I had done thesame thing so often before; I had carried all my times of stress soinfallibly to that particular place, that instinctively my feet turnedthere. 

And there in the starlight, I went over the whole serio-comedy, and Iloathed my part in it. He had been perfectly right to be angry with meand with all of us. And I had been a hypocrite and a Pharisee, and hadthanked God that I was not as other people, when the fact was that I wasworse than the worst. And although it wasn't dignified to think of himgoing down the drain pipe, still--no one could blame him for wanting toget away from us, and he was quite muscular enough to do it. 

I was in the depths of self-abasement when I heard a sound behind me. Itwas a long breath, quite audible, that ended in a groan. I gripped theparapet and listened, while my heart pounded, and in a minute it cameagain. 

I was terribly frightened. Then--I don't know how I did it, but I wasacross the roof, kneeling beside the tent, where it stood againstthe chimney. And there, lying prone among the flower pots, and almostentirely hidden, lay the man we had been looking for. 

His head was toward me, and I reached out shakingly and touched hisface. It was cold, and my hand, when I drew it back, was covered withblood. 

Chapter XXII. IT WAS DELIRIUM

I was sure he was dead. He did not move, and when I caught his hands andcalled him frantically, he did not hear me. And so, with the horror overme, I half fell down the stairs and roused Jim in the studio. 

They all came with lights and blankets, and they carried him into thetent and put him on the couch and tried to put whisky in his mouth. Buthe could not swallow. And the silence became more and more ominous untilfinally Anne got hysterical and cried, "He is dead! Dead!" and collapsedon the roof. 

But he was not. Just as the lights in the tent began to have red ringsaround them and Jim's voice came from away across the river, somebodysaid, "There, he swallowed that, " and soon after, he opened his eyes. Hemuttered something that sounded like "Andean pinnacle" and lapsed intounconsciousness again. But he was not dead! He was not dead!

When the doctor came they made a stretcher out of one of Jim's six-footcanvases--it had a picture on it, and Jim was angry enough the nextday--and took him down to the studio. We made it as much like asick-room as we could, and we tried to make him comfortable. But he laywithout opening his eyes, and at dawn the doctor brought a consultantand a trained nurse. 

The nurse was an offensively capable person. She put us all out, andscolded Anne for lighting Japanese incense in the room--although Anneexplained that it is very reviving. And she said that it was unnecessaryto have a dozen people breathing up all the oxygen and asphyxiatingthe patient. She was good-looking, too. I disliked her at once. Anyone could see by the way she took his pulse--just letting his poor handhang, without any support--that she was a purely mechanical creature, without heart. 

Well, as I said before, she put us all out, and shut the door, and askedus not to whisper outside. Then, too, she refused to allow any flowersin the room, although Betty had got a florist out of bed to order some. 

The consultant came, stayed an hour, and left. Aunt Selina, who provedherself a trump in that trying time, waylaid him in the hall, andhe said it might be a fractured skull, although it was possibly onlyconcussion. 

The men spent most of the morning together in the den, with the doorshut. Now and then one of them would tiptoe upstairs, ask the nurse howher patient was doing, and creak down again. Just before noon they allwent to the roof and examined again the place where he had been found. I know, for I was in the upper hall outside the studio. I stayed therealmost all day, and after a while the nurse let me bring her things asshe needed them. I don't know why mother didn't let me study nursing--Ialways wanted to do it. And I felt helpless and childish now, when therewere things to be done. 

Max came down from the roof alone, and I cornered him in the upper hall. 

"I'm going crazy, Max, " I said. "Nobody will tell me anything, and Ican't stand it. How was he hurt? Who hurt him?"

Max looked at me quite a long time. 

"I'm darned if I understand you, Kit, " he said gravely. "You said youdisliked Harbison. "

"So I do--I did, " I supplemented. "But whether I like him or not hasnothing to do with it. He has been injured--perhaps murdered"--I chokeda little. "Which--which of you did it?"

Max took my hand and held it, looking down at me. 

"I wish you could have cared for me like that, " he said gently. "Dearlittle girl, we don't know who hurt him. I didn't, if that's what youmean. Perhaps a flower pot--"

I began to cry then, and he drew me to him and let me cry on his arm. Hestood very quietly, patting my head in a brotherly way and behaving verywell, save that once he said:

"Don't cry too long, Kit; I can stand only a certain amount. "

And just then the nurse opened the door to the studio, and with Max'sarm still around me, I raised my head and looked in. 

Mr. Harbison was conscious. His eyes were open, and he was staring at usboth as we stood framed by the doorway. 

He lay back at once and closed his eyes, and the nurse shut the door. There was no use, even if I had been allowed in, in trying to explainto him. To attempt such a thing would have been to presume that he wasinterested in an explanation. I thought bitterly to myself as I broughtthe nurse cracked ice and struggled to make beef tea in the kitchen, that lives had been wrecked on less. 

Dal was allowed ten minutes in the sick room during the afternoon, andhe came out looking puzzled and excited. He refused to tell us what hehad learned, however, and the rest of the afternoon he and Jim spent inthe cellar. 

The day dragged on. Downstairs people ate and read and wrote letters, and outside newspaper men talked together and gazed over at the houseand photographed the doctors coming in and the doctors going out. As forme, in the intervals of bringing things, I sat in Bella's chair in theupper hall, and listened to the crackle of the nurse's starched skirts. 

At midnight that night the doctors made a thorough examination. Whenthey came out they were smiling. 

"He is doing very well, " the younger one said--he was hairy and dark, but he was beautiful to me. "He is entirely conscious now, and in aboutan hour you can send the nurse off for a little sleep. Don't let himtalk. "

And so at last I went through the familiar door into an unfamiliar room, with basins and towels and bottles around, and a screen made of Jim'slargest canvases. And someone on the improvised bed turned and lookedat me. He did not speak, and I sat down beside him. After a while he puthis hand over mine as it lay on the bed. 

"You are much better to me than I deserve, " he said softly. And becausehis eyes were disconcerting, I put an ice cloth over them. 

"Much better than you deserve, " I said, and patted the ice cloth toplace gently. He fumbled around until he found my hand again, and wewere quiet for a long time. I think he dozed, for he roused suddenly andpulled the cloth from his eyes. 

"The--the day is all confused, " he said, turning to look at me, "but--one thing seems to stand out from everything else. Perhaps itwas delirium, but I seemed to see that door over there open, and you, outside, with--with Max. His arms were around you. "

"It was delirium, " I said softly. It was my final lie in that house ofmendacity. 

He drew a satisfied breath, and lifting my hand, held it to his lips andkissed it. 

"I can hardly believe it is you, " he said. "I have to hold firmly toyour hand or you will disappear. Can't you move your chair closer? Youare miles away. " So I did it, for he was not to be excited. 

After a little--

"It's awfully good of you to do this. I have been desperately sorry, Kit, about the other night. It was a ruffianly thing to do--to kiss you, when I thought--"

"You are to keep very still, " I reminded him. He kissed my hand again, but he persisted. 

"I was mad--crazy. " I tried to give him some medicine, but he pushed thespoon aside. "You will have to listen, " he said. "I am in the depths ofself-disgust. I--I can't think of anything else. You see, you seemedso convinced that I was the blackguard that somehow nothing seemed tomatter. "

"I have forgotten it all, " I declared generously, "and I would be quitewilling to be friends, only, you remember you said--"

"Friends!" his voice was suddenly reckless, and he raised on his elbow. "Friends! Who wants to be friends? Kit, I was almost delirious thatnight. The instant I held you in my arms--It was all over. I loved youthe first time I saw you. I--I suppose I'm a fool to talk like this. "

And, of course, just then Dallas had to open the door and step into theroom. He was covered with dirt and he had a hatchet in his hand. 

"A rope!" he demanded, without paying any attention to us and divinginto corners of the room. "Good heavens, isn't there a rope in thisconfounded house!"

He turned and rushed out, without any explanation, and left us staringat the door. 

"Bother the rope!" I found myself forced to look into two earnest eyes. "Kit, were you VERY angry when I kissed you that night on the roof?"

"Very, " I maintained stoutly. 

"Then prepare yourself for another attack of rage!" he said. And Bettyopened the door. 

She had on a fetching pale blue dressing gown, and one braid of heryellow hair was pulled carelessly over her shoulder. When she saw meon my knees beside the bed (oh, yes, I forgot to say that, quiteunconsciously, I had slid into that position) she stopped short, justinside the door, and put her hand to her throat. She stood for quite aperceptible time looking at us, and I tried to rise. But Tom shamelesslyput his arm around my shoulders and held me beside him. Then Bettytook a step back and steadied herself by the door frame. She had reallycared, I knew then, but I was too excited to be sorry for her. 

"I--I beg your pardon for coming in, " she said nervously. "But--theywant you downstairs, Kit. At least, I thought you would want to go, but--perhaps--"

Just then from the lower part of the house came a pandemonium of noises;women screaming, men shouting, and the sound of hatchet strokes andsplintering wood. I seized Betty by the arm, and together we rushed downthe stairs. 

Chapter XXIII. COMING

The second floor was empty. A table lay overturned at the top of thestairs, and a broken flower vase was weltering in its own ooze. Part waydown Betty stepped on something sharp, that proved to be the Japanesepaper knife from the den. I left her on the stairs examining her footand hurried to the lower floor. 

Here everything was in the utmost confusion. Aunt Selina had fainted, and was sitting in a hall chair with her head rolled over sidewise andthe poker from the library fireplace across her knees. No one was payingany attention to her. And Jim was holding the front door open, whilethree of the guards hesitated in the vestibule. The noises continuedfrom the back of the house, and as I stood on the lowest stair Bellacame out from the dining room, with her face streaked with soot, andcarrying a kettle of hot water. 

"Jim, " she called wildly. "While Max and Dal are below, you can pourthis down from the top. It's boiling. "

Jim glanced back over his shoulder. "Carry out your own murderousdesigns, " he said. And then, as she started back with it, "Bella, forHeaven's sake, " he called, "have you gone stark mad? Put that kettledown. "

She did it sulkily and Jim turned to the policeman. 

"Yes, I know it was a false alarm before, " he explained patiently, "butthis is genuine. It is just as I tell you. Yes, Flannigan is in thehouse somewhere, but he's hiding, I guess. We could manage the thingvery well ourselves, but we have no cartridges for our revolvers. " Thenas the noise from the rear redoubled, "If you don't come in and help, Iwill telephone for the fire department, " he concluded emphatically. 

I ran to Aunt Selina and tried to straighten her head. In a moment sheopened her eyes, sat up and stared around her. She saw the kettle atonce. 

"What are you doing with boiling water on the floor?" she said to me, with her returning voice. "Don't you know you will spoil the floor?" Theruling passion was strong with Aunt Selina, as usual. 

I could not find out the trouble from any one; people appeared anddisappeared, carrying strange articles. Anne with a rope, Dal with hishatchet, Bella and the kettle, but I could get a coherent explanationfrom no one. When the guards finally decided that Jim was in earnest, and that the rest of us were not crawling out a rear window while heheld them at the door, they came in, three of them and two reporters, and Jim led them to the butler's pantry. 

Here we found Anne, very white and shaky, with the pantry table and twochairs piled against the door of the kitchen slide, and clutching thechamois-skin bag that held her jewels. She had a bottle of burgundy openbeside her, and was pouring herself a glass with shaking hands when weappeared. She was furious at Jim. 

"I very nearly fainted, " she said hysterically. "I might have beenmurdered, and no one would have cared. I wish they would stop thatchopping, I'm so nervous I could scream. "

Jim took the Burgundy from her with one hand and pointed the police tothe barricaded door with the other. 

"That is the door to the dumb-waiter shaft, " he said. "The lower oneis fastened on the inside, in some manner. The noises commenced abouteleven o'clock, while Mr. Brown was on guard. There were scraping soundsfirst, and later the sound of a falling body. He roused Mr. Reed andmyself, but when we examined the shaft everything was quiet, and dark. We tried lowering a candle on a string, but--it was extinguished frombelow. "

The reporters were busily removing the table and chairs from the door. 

"If you have a rope handy, " one of them said, "I will go down theshaft. "

(Dal says that all reporters should have been policemen, and that allpolicemen are natural newsgatherers. )

"The cage appears to be stuck, half-way between the floors, " Jim said. "They are cutting through the door in the kitchen below. "

They opened the door then and cautiously peered down, but there wasnothing to be seen. I touched Jim gingerly on the arm. 

"Is it--is it Flannigan, " I asked, "shut in there?"

"No--yes--I don't know, " he returned absently. "Run along and don'tbother, Kit. He may take to shooting any minute. "

Anne and I went out then and shut the door, and went into the diningroom and sat on our feet, for of course the bullets might come upthrough the floor. Aunt Selina joined us there, and Bella, and theMercer girls, and we sat around and talked in whispers, and Leila Mercertold of the time her grandfather had had a struggle with an escapedlunatic. 

In the midst of the excitement Tom appeared in a bathrobe, lookingvery pale, with a bandage around his head, and the nurse at his heelsthreatening to leave and carrying a bottle of medicine and a spoon. Hewent immediately to the pantry, and soon we could hear him giving ordersand the rest hurrying around to obey them. The hammering ceased, and thesilence was even worse. It was more suggestive. 

In about fifteen minutes there was a thud, as if the cage had fallen, and the sound of feet rushing down the cellar stairs. Then there weregroans and loud oaths, and everybody talking at once, below, and thesound of a struggle. In the dining room we all sat bent forward, withstraining ears and quickened breath, until we distinctly heard someonelaugh. Then we knew that, whatever it was, it was over, and nobody waskilled. 

The sounds came closer, were coming up the stairs and into the pantry. Then the door swung open, and Tom and a policeman appeared in thedoorway, with the others crowding behind. Between them they supporteda grimy, unshaven object, covered with whitewash from the wall of theshaft, an object that had its hands fastened together with handcuffs, and that leered at us with a pair of the most villainously crossed eyesI have ever seen. 

None of us had ever seen him before. 

"Mr. Lawrence McGuirk, better known as Tubby, '" Tom said cheerfully. "A celebrity in his particular line, which is second-story man andall-round rascal. A victim of the quarantine, like ourselves. "

"We've missed him for a week, " one of the guards said with a grin. "We've been real anxious about you, Tubby. Ain't a week goes by, whenyou're in health, that we don't hear something of you. "

Mr. McGuirk muttered something under his breath, and the men chuckled. 

"It seems, " Tom said, interpreting, "that he doesn't like us much. Hedoesn't like the food, and he doesn't like the beds. He says just whenhe got a good place fixed up in the coal cellar, Flannigan found it, andis asleep there now, this minute. "

Aunt Selina rose suddenly and cleared her throat. 

"Am I to understand, " she asked severely, "that from now on we will haveto add two newspaper reporters, three policemen and a burglar to theoccupants of this quarantined house? Because, if that is the case, Iabsolutely refuse to feed them. "

But one of the reporters stepped forward and bowed ceremoniously. 

"Madam, " he said, "I thank you for your kind invitation, but--it willbe impossible for us to accept. I had intended to break the good newsearlier, but this little game of burglar-in-a-corner prevented me. Thefact is, your Jap has been discovered to have nothing more serious thanchicken-pox, and--if you will forgive a poultry yard joke, there is nolonger any necessity for your being cooped up. "

Then he retired, quite pleased with himself. 

One would have thought we had exhausted our capacity for emotion, butJim said a joyful emotion was so new that we hardly knew how to receiveit. Every one shook hands with every one else, and even the nurse sharedin the excitement and gave Jim the medicine she had prepared for Tom. 

Then we all sat down and had some champagne, and while they were waitingfor the police wagon, they gave some to poor McGuirk. He was still quiteshaken from his experience when the dumb-waiter stuck. The wine cheeredhim a little, and he told his story, in a voice that was creaky fromdisuse, while Tom held my hand under the table. 

He had had a dreadful week, he said; he spent his days in a closet inone of the maids' rooms--the one where we had put Jim. It was Jim wakingout of a nap and declaring that the closet door had moved by itself andthat something had crawled under his bed and out of the door, that hadroused the suspicions of the men in the house--and he slept at night onthe coal in the cellar. He was actually tearful when he rubbed his handover his scrubby chin, and said he hadn't had a shave for a week. Hetook somebody's razor, he said, but he couldn't get hold of a portablemirror, and every time he lathered up and stood in front of the glass inthe dining room sideboard, some one came and he had had to run and hide. He told, too, of his attempts to escape, of the board on the roof, ofthe home-made rope, and the hole in the cellar, and he spoke feelinglyof the pearl collar and the struggle he had made to hide it. He saidthat for three days it was concealed in the pocket of Jim's old smokingcoat in the studio. 

We were all rather sorry for him, but if we had made him uncomfortable, think of what he had done to us. And for him to tell, as he did later incourt, that if that was high society he would rather be a burglar, andthat we starved him, and that the women had to dress each other becausethey had no lady's maids, and that the whole lot of us were in love withone man, it was downright malicious. 

The wagon came for him just as he finished his story, and we all wentto the door. In the vestibule Aunt Selina suddenly remembered something, and she stepped forward and caught the poor fellow by the arm. 

"Young man, " she said grimly. "I'll thank you to return what you tookfrom ME last Tuesday night. "

McGuirk stared, then shuddered and turned suddenly pale. 

"Good Lord!" he ejaculated. "On the stairs to the roof! YOU?"

They led him away then, quite broken, with Aunt Selina staring afterhim. She never did understand. I could have explained, but it was tooawful. 

On the steps McGuirk turned and took a farewell glance at us. Then hewaved his hand to the policemen and reporters who had gathered around. 

"Goodby, fellows, " he called feebly. "I ain't sorry, I ain't. Jail'll bea paradise after this. "

And then we went to pack our trunks. 

NOTE FROM MAX WHICH CAME THE NEXT DAY WITH ITS ENCLOSURE. 

My Dear Kit--The enclosed trunk tag was used on my trunk, evidently bymistake. Higgins discovered it when he was unpacking and returned itto me under the misapprehension that I had written it. I wish I had. Isuppose there must be something attractive about a fellow who has thecourage to write a love letter on the back of a trunk tag, and whodoesn't give a tinker's damn who finds it. But for my peace of mind, askhim not to leave another one around where I will come across it. Max. 

WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF THE TRUNK TAG. 

Don't you know that I won't see you until tomorrow? For Heaven's sake, get away from this crowd and come into the den. If you don't I will kissyou before everybody. Are you coming? T. 

WRITTEN BELOW. 

No indeed. K. 

THIS WAS SCRATCHED OUT AND BENEATH. 

Coming.