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NOBODY

LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

[Illustration: "Miss Manwaring! For the Love of Mike--"]

NOBODY

By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

AUTHOR OF "The Lone Wolf, "

"The Brass Bowl, " "Cynthia of the Minute, "

"The Destroying Angel, " Etc. 

With Frontispiece

By W. L. JACOBS

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers

New York

Published by Arrangement with GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Copyright, 1914, By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

Copyright, 1915, By GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

_This novel was originally published serially, under the title of "An Outsider. "_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I ANARCHY

 II BURGLARY

 III ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT

 IV BLACKMAIL

 V CONSPIRACY

 VI ALIAS MANWARING

 VII FRAUD

 VIII A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

 IX PICAROON

 X LEGERDEMAIN

 XI THE THIRD DEGREE

 XII MACHIAVELLIAN

 XIII MARPLOT

 XIV MAGIC

 XV FALSE WITNESS

 XVI THE PLANT

 XVII EXPOSE

XVIII BREAKING JAIL

NOBODY

CHAPTER I

ANARCHY

"What you gonna have?"

To this inquiry the patron made no response; head bent, nose betweenthe pages of the magazine, she pored sedulously over a legend attachedto one of the illustrations. 

After a decent pause in waiting the waitress renewed her demand with asharper accent:

"Say, lis'en; what you want?"

"White satin, veiled with _point d' Angleterre_, '" Miss Manversreplied distinctly, if without looking up, aware simply of somethingimperative in the starched but humid presence at her elbow. 

Pardonably startled, the waitress demanded with the rising inflection:"_Wha-a-at?_"

"'The court train, '" Miss Manvers pursued in abstraction, "'is linedwith lace and dotted with bouquets of orange-blossoms--'"

She checked herself suddenly, looked up shyly, and essayed a pale, apologetic smile. 

"I'm sorry; I didn't realise--"

But now the waitress had caught a glimpse of the illustration and wasbending over the patron's shoulder for a better look. 

"Gee!" she commented sincerely. "Ain't that a dream?"

"Yes, " Miss Manvers admitted wistfully, "it's a dream, right enough!"

"That's so, too. " Deftly, with a large, moist, red hand, the waitressarranged knife, fork, spoon, and paper serviette on the unclothedbrown board before Miss Manvers. "That's the worst of them fashionmag'zines, " she complained; "they get your goat. Sometimes afterreadin' some of that dope I can't hardly remember orders right, justfor wishin' somebody'd come along and hang some of them joyful ragsonto me!"

Then, catching the eye of the manager, she straightway resumed herprofessional habit of slightly wilted hauteur--compounded in equalparts of discontent, tired feet, heat-fag and that profound disdainfor food-consuming animals which inevitably informs the mind of everyquick-lunch waitress. 

"What you gonna have?" she demanded dispassionately. 

"Ham-and, please. "

"Plate of ham-and. Cawfy?"

"Yes, iced coffee and"--Miss Manvers hesitated briefly--"and anapoleon. "

Reciting the amended order, the waitress withdrew. 

For the next few moments the customer neglected the fashion magazinewhich she had found--apparently a souvenir of some otherabsent-minded patron--on the seat of the chair next that one of herown casual choice. 

She stared blankly at the smudged and spotted bill of fare propped up, in its wooden frame, against an armour-plate-china sugar-bowl. She wasdeeply intrigued by the mystery of human frailty as exemplified by herreckless extravagance in ordering that superfluous bit of pastry. MissManvers's purse contained a single coin of silver, the quarter of adollar; being precisely the sum of her entire fortune. Her ham andbeans would cost fifteen cents, the coffee and the napoleon five centseach. In other words, she would be penniless when she had paid herscore--and Heaven only knew for how long afterward. 

Her lips moved without sound in her worn and pallid face. "What's thedifference?" she bully-ragged her conscience. "I might as well bebroke as the way I am!"

The argument was painfully reasonable; that inmate of New Yorkwho has but five cents has nothing. 

On the other hand, there was nothing whatever to be advanced inextenuation of her folly in thus inviting indigestion--a passion forpastry is its own punishment no less than any other infatuation towhich mortal flesh is prone. Sally was morally certain she wouldsuffer, and that severely, before nightfall. 

"Well, what of it?" she grumbled sullenly. "If I die for it, it'scheap at the price! And, no matter what happens, it can't be anyhotter afterward than it is now. "

Somehow soothed by this cynical reflection, she sat up, mopped herflushed forehead with a handkerchief of which she was not proud, anddrank thirstily of her tumbler of ice-water. 

The grateful draft reminded her that she had actually been athirstever since noon. It was now almost three o'clock--thanks to which factshe might eat in the comparative comfort of a lunchroom which boastedno patron other than herself. But she was little appreciative of thisboon; she comprehended her surroundings with just a little languidresentment of their smug cleanliness and their atmosphere impregnatedwith effluvia of cheap edibles. But if these seemed offensive shewould have been willing to overlook them on certainconditions--as she proved when the waitress reappeared with her order. 

"I don't suppose--" Miss Manvers began, but hesitated. 

"What say?"

"I don't suppose you need any more girls here?"

"Lookin' for a job?" the waitress inquired brilliantly. "I dunno--I'llask the manager, if you want. "

Miss Manvers nodded a barely audible "Please!" She munched drearilyfor a few minutes, staring out through the front windows wherein, fromdawn till dark, a white-clad chef industriously browned the wheats andcast sinkers; beyond their wide expanse of plate-glass, stenciled withthe name of the establishment in reverse, a vista of sun-smittenstreet danced drunkenly through the reek from the sheet-iron griddles. Miss Manvers wondered dully if the sidewalks were really less hot thanthose same griddles. 

"The manager says nothin' doin', " the waitress reported. "But you canleave your name and add-ress if you wanta. "

"Thanks, " said Miss Manvers; "but what's the use?"

"That's right, all right, " the other sympathised. "Besides, take itfrom me, this ain't the kind of a job you could make good at. Yougotta be a horse like me to stand it, 'specially days like this. "

"Yes, I was thinking of that--"

"Believe me or not, nobody ain't got no idear what hot is withoutthey've juggled hash in one of these joints on a summer day. Thekitchen back there is honest' somethin' fierce. Three of our girlsfainted dead away in the noon rush. "

"Oh, I know, " Miss Manvers sighed; "I've tried it before--and failed. "

The entrance of another customer prevented further confidences, andMiss Manvers was left to resume her scanning of the fashion magazine. 

If its distracting quality was unquestionable, it hardly contributedcomfort to her mood. 

"In selecting her personal apparel, " she read, "the bride-to-be must, of necessity, be guided by individual requirements and the socialposition which she is to assume. Although much has been said about theadvisability of purchasing only what is really needed and can be wornbefore the styles change, it is a common fault of brides to buy toomuch. . . . It is assumed that the June bride will have already onhand a suit or two, a one-piece frock of serge or similar material, atop-coat, an afternoon coat or one of the new capes, evening gowns, and an evening wrap, one or two afternoon and luncheon frocks, and hats, shoes, and similar accessories. . . . "

Here Miss Manvers withdrew from the printed page long enough mentallyto inventory her own wardrobe. 

"That lets me out, " she said, and turned a page. 

The caption, "A Feudal Aristocracy, " caught her attention. "LongIsland, " she learned, "is a poem itself to-day, even if it issuffering from cheap developments, the encroachment of tenantry, andthe swarming of the commuters. It is too bad that this garden spotmust be overrun, and indeed there has been a movement to stay the tideof immigration from the city. In one section our best people arebuying up vast stretches of property to add to their private estates. . . . "

Fascinated, Miss Manvers thrust aside a garnished plate, took a gulpof the decoction called coffee, and attacked her napoleon. 

"I am so glad, " she continued to read, "to see that we are adding toour estates and fast forming an aristocracy of the countryside; wereally live at our country places now for over half the year. Even thelarge weddings are no longer town affairs. If one has an estate it isso much smarter now to marry off one's daughters from the countryplace. Yet there is always one difficulty about this method ofprocedure: can such weddings be afforded the prominencenecessary? Weddings, of course, must be given a certain amount ofadvertisement, through the proper channels, because each of us standsfor a representative house, which must not drop into oblivion. . . . "

At this point Miss Manvers wrinkled her nose indignantly. "Just forthat, " she informed the unknown author of this artless screed, "justfor that now, I've a great mind not to go to Long Island at all thissummer--not even once to Coney!"

She turned impatiently back to the advertising pages and reviewed the"classified wants" listlessly, forewarned by experience that theywould offer no invitation to one of her singularly modestaccomplishments; none of these advertisers desired the services of asaleswoman, a typist, or even a lady's-maid. Not that Miss Manversimagined she would score a success in the role of lady's-maid, thoughit was almost the only means open to her of earning a livelihoodwhich, thus far, she had not essayed. 

Such work was hardly calculated to suit a girl with a mind ofindependent cast and what is known as a temper of her own: prohibitivebarriers between her and such bread as may be earned in the sweat ofdomestic servitude. 

Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the SocialWorld, " gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl'sintelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had herfood those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy--triteannouncements of post-season luncheons, dinners, dances, and bridgeparties; of departures for Europe and for American country homes, ofengagements and of weddings--distilling therefrom an acid envy thatrobbed her napoleon of all its savour. 

Such was the life for which she yearned with every famished aspirationof her being. And why not? Who were these whose half-tone portraitssmirked complacence or scowled disdain to her inspection--who werethese that they should enjoy every good thing in life while she mustgo hungering all her days for a little pleasure? Scarce one betrayedby feature or expression either breeding or intelligence superior tothat of Sally Manvers, late of the hardware notions in Huckster'sBargain Basement!

Regarding the full-page reproduction of a photograph showing ajibber-jawed June bride in full regalia, Miss Manvers was movedenviously to paraphrase an epigram of moot origin: "There, but for thegrace of God, stands Sally Manvers!"

There was enough truth in that to excuse a little gulp of emotion;which, however, was craftily dissembled. 

In due course, rising, Miss Manvers stood and delivered at thedesk of the blond cashier, then, penniless, wandered forth into thebrutal sunshine. 

Her homeward way took her up Sixth Avenue, through Thirty-FourthStreet, and northward on Park Avenue. 

She went slowly, wearily, as suited a drudge to whom respite fromdrudgery brought no earnest of ease or pleasure. The burning air beatup into her downcast face from sun-baked stones that scorched throughthe soles of her shoddy shoes, and she gulped down acrid mouthfuls ofit rather than breathed. 

June was still young, but already summer, like some burly ruffianshouldering spring aside with her work half done, held the city in thehollow of a hot and humid hand. 

In the mid-afternoon glow, lower Park Avenue owned its personalatmosphere of somnolent isolation, in strong contrast with the bustleof proletarian Fourth Avenue at its one extreme and the roar at theother of traffic-galled Forty-Second Street. Of the residences a few, whose awninged windows resembled heavy-lidded eyes, overlookedwayfaring folk with drowsy arrogance; the greater number, with boardeddoors and blinded windows, like mouths and eyes tight shut inseasonable slumber, ignored the world entirely. 

Though she had passed that way twice a day for years onend--always in consciousness of that aloof spirit informing theinanimate, and in such resentment thereof as properly rewarded astudied insolence--never before to-day had Sarah Manvers found thegenius of the neighbourhood so unmitigatedly intolerable. It was withdownright relief that presently she turned from the avenue eastwardand accomplished in the span of one short cross-town block a transitof the most violent contrasts, from the dull dignity of the sociallyeligible, if somewhat _passé_, through a stratum of shabby gentility, to a region of late years dedicated to the uses of adversityundisguised. 

A few doors short of Lexington Avenue she paused, sighed, turned, climbed weather-bitten steps to a brownstone entrance, and addressedherself to three long flights of naked stairs. 

She left behind, at the entrance, the dingy parlours of "Mme. Levin, Modes et Toilettes, " on the first landing the wailing-rooms of ahag-ridden teacher of vocal culture, on the next several dustychambers perennially unrented, and gained at the top an open doorwhose panels sported a simple rectangle of cardboard advertising thetenancy of (in engraved script) _Miss Lucy Spode_, (in ink) _M. A. Warden_, and (in pencil, a scrawl) _Manvers_. 

Through this the girl walked into a back room of generous size, whichboasted a top-light together with the generic name of studio, andwas furnished with an ill-assorted company of lame and dismal pieces. The several vocations of its tenants were indicated by atypewriting-machine beneath a rubber hood thick with dust, a foldingmetal music-stand and a violin-case, and a large studio easelsupplemented by a number of scrubby canvases. A door in the partitionwall communicated with a small bedchamber of the kind commonly termed"hall room. " And in one corner a stationary wash-stand and a gas-stovefor morbid cookery lurked behind a Japanese screen of dilapidatedpanels. 

Near the windows, on the end of a box-couch, a young woman wasperched, thin shoulders rounded over the ink-stained drawing-boardresting on her knees. She had a large, self-willed mouth and darkBohemian hair, and wore a dreary cotton kimono over a silk petticoatwhose past had been lurid. One hand clutched gingerly a bottle ofIndia ink, the other wielded a scratchy steel drafting-pen. 

Interrupted, she looked up with a start that all but spilled the inkand cried in a voice heavily coloured with the enervating brogue ofthe Southern born:

"My land, Sally! _What_ time is it?"

In the act of unpinning her hat (a straw that even a drowning womanwould have hesitated to grasp at) Miss Manvers paused to consult aninvalid alarm-clock which was suffering palpitations on anadjacent shelf. 

"Twenty past three, " she reported, sententious. 

The artist cocked her head, squinted malevolently at her drawing, dipped, and busily scratched once more. 

"Scared me, " she explained: "coming home so early!"

Sally removed her collar with a wrench and a grunt: "Got a date?"

"Sure; with Sammy--four o'clock. "

"Salamander stuff, eh?"

"What do you want--a day like this? I'm half-cooked already, and Iguess I can go through a little fire for the sake of a sixty-cent_table d' hôte_ and a trip to Coney. But you needn't worry; it'll behotter than this before Sammy warms up enough to singe anything. Hisintentions are so praiseworthy they pain him; he blushes every time hehas to recognise the sex question long enough to discuss the delightsof monogamy in a two-family house within commuting distance ofProspect Park South. "

"You don't mean to say you've got that far along--already!"

"That's the reward of a year's steady angling, honey. "

"Heavens, but how you must carry on with Sammy!"

"Believe me, it's something scandalous, " sighed Lucy Spode. 

"But why--" Sally began in a tone of expostulation. 

The other quickened with a flash of temper. "Don't ask me! I cameNo'th to study art and mingle with the world of intellect and fashion, and after three years I'm drawing heads for fashion magazines at adollar per, and I know a minor poet who's acquainted with theassistant editor of _The Scrap-Book_, and the one man I know who ownsa dress-suit gets fifty cents an hour for posing in it. If that isn'tenough to make me welcome even the prospect of married life with SammyMyerick and a woman to do the washing, I don't know--"

"Well, if you aren't crazy about Sammy, why not chuck him? Marriageisn't the last resource for a girl like you. You've got just as manywits to live on as the next one. This town's full of young women nobetter-looking than either of us, and with even less intelligence, whomanage pretty comfortably, thank you, on the living the world owesthem. "

"Sally Manvers!" cried the Southern girl, scandalised, "what a way totalk!"

"Oh, _all_ right, " said the other indifferently. "Where's MaryWarden?"

"Lyric Hall-rehearsing. "

"Lucky Mary!"

Lucy Spode looked up in astonishment. "Lucky!" she protested; "dancingtill she's ready to drop, in this awful heat, and no pay forrehearsals!"

"All the same, " Sally contended, "she's got some chance, some right tohope for better things. She's an understudy, and her principal mightfall ill--or something. That's better than marrying a man you don'tcare for--or clerking at Huckster's for seven dollars a week. "

"Cat, " said Miss Spode dispassionately. "Who's been mussing your fur?"

"Life. "

The steel pen was poised again while Lucy Spode surveyed Sally Manverssuspiciously. 

"What do you mean--life?" she demanded. 

"This sort of thing. " Sally waved a comprehensive hand. "Living here, in this hole, and most of the time not even able to pay my share ofthe rent; slaving for a dollar a day, and losing part of that inunjust fines; walking to and from the store to save car fare; eatingthe sort of food we do eat; never having pretty clothes or pleasuresof any sort. I don't call this a life!"

"You've got indigestion, " Miss Spade diagnosed shrewdly. "I'll bet twobits you've been eating napoleons again. "

"I have got indigestion, but it's thanks only to being fed upwith existence--the kind we lead, at least. I want something better. "

"The vote, perhaps?"

"For two cents I'd throw something at you. "

The artist uncoiled her legs, stuck the pen in her hair, set theink-bottle down on the floor, sighed, and, lifting the drawing-board, held it at arm's length, studying her work through narrowed eyelids. 

"Then it must be a man, " she concluded absently. "When a woman oftwenty-seven wants something and doesn't know what it is, it's eitherthe vote or a man. "

"Oh, shut up. "

"With man an odds-on favourite in the betting. " Miss Spode laid theboard aside with a "Thank goodness, that's finished!" and, rising, stretched her cramped limbs. "What I'd like to know, " she persisted, "is whether it's man abstract or a man concrete. "

Sally laughed bitterly. "Take a good look at me, dear--as an exhibit, not as a friend--and tell me honestly whether any man worth havingwould glance twice at me. "

"You can be pretty enough, " Miss Spade returned seriously, "when youwant to take the trouble--"

"But I don't--ever. "

"The more fool you. "

"What's the use--on seven a week? What's the good of being pretty inrags like these? It only gets a girl in wrong. I don't care howfetching I might make myself seem--"

"But you ought to. "

"Look here; do you know how a reporter would describe me?"

"Of course; 'respectable working girl. '"

"Well, then, men worth while don't run after 'respectable workinggirls'; they leave that to things who wear 'Modish Men'sClothing'--with braided cuffs and pockets slashed on the bias!--andstand smirking on corners we have to pass going home. Do you think I'ddo my hair becomingly, and--and all that--to attract such creatures?"

"So it's abstract man. Thought so!"

"It's starvation, that's what it is. I'm sick for want of what othergirls get without asking--pretty clothes and--and all that sort ofthing. "

"Meaning, " the artist interpreted gravely, "love. "

"Well, " Sally demanded, defiant, "why not?"

"Why not indeed?" Lucy returned obliquely, wandering round the studioand collecting various articles of wearing-apparel toward herappearance in public. 

"I'm twenty-seven, " Miss Manvers declared mutinously. "I'll never beyounger--I want to be loved before I'm old!"

She paused, viewed with reassuring amusement Lucy's countenance ofperplexity, and laughed again. 

"I've had ten years of independence; and what has it brought me? Thereward of virtue: that swaybacked couch for my bed, Uneeda biscuit formy bread, and for salt--tears of envy!"

"Virtue is its own reward, " Lucy enunciated severely. 

"Virtue is its only reward, you mean!"

"You don't talk fit to eat. "

"You know what I mean. Only mental bankrupts go to the devil becausethey're hungry. I'm less bothered about keeping body and soul together--Huckster's seven a week does that after a fashion--than aboutkeeping soul and mind together. "

"It sounds reasonable. "

"I'm desperate, I tell you! And there's more than one resort ofdesperation for a girl of intelligence. "

"As, for instance-"

"Well--you've named one. "

"Man?"

"That's the animal's first name. "

"But you've just pointed out, a successful campaign demands awardrobe. "

"Even that can be had if one's unscrupulous enough. "

"Whatever do you mean?"

"To seek happiness where I can find it. I'm game for anything. I'm'north of fifty-three'!"

"You're _what_?"

"Have you forgotten the 'Rhyme of the Three Sealers'? 'There's never alaw of God or man runs north of fifty-three'! Well, the age oftwenty-seven is a woman's fifty-three, north latitude--at least, it isif she's unmarried--time to jettison scruples, morals, regard for theconventions, and hoist the black flag of social piracy!"

"In plain language, you think the hour has struck to doll yourself uplike a man-trap. What?"

"Yes--and hang the expense!"

"By all means, hang it. But where? It's a case of cash or credit; thefirst you haven't got, and I don't see your visible means ofsupporting a charge-account at Altman's. "

"There are ways, " Sally insisted darkly. 

"You can't mean you'd do anything dishonest--"

"I'd do _anything_. Look at all the people in high places who began asnothing more nor less than adventurers. Nobody's fussing about howthey got their money. It's a sin to be poor nowadays, but the sin ofsins is to stay poor!"

A moment of silence followed this pronouncement; then Miss Spodeobserved pensively:

"Something's happened to you to-day, Sally. What is it? You haven'tbeen--"

"Fired again'? Not exactly. Just laid off indefinitely--that's all. With good luck I may get my job back next September. "

"Oh, but honey!" Lucy exclaimed, crossing to drop a hand on Sally'sshoulder: "I am sorry!"

"Of course you are, " Sally returned stonily. "But you needn't be. I'mnot going to let this make things any harder for you and Mary Warden. "

"How perfectly mean! You know I wasn't thinking anything like that!"

"Yes, dear, I do know it. " In sudden contrition, Sally caught theother girl's hand and laid her cheek transiently against it. "What Imeant to make clear was"--she faltered momentarily--"I've made up mymind I'm a Jonah, and the only decent thing for me to do is to quityou both, Lucy, my dear!"

She ended on a round note of determination rather than of defiance, and endured calmly, if with a slightly self-conscious smile, thedistressed look of her companion. 

"Don't be silly!" this last retorted, pulling herself together. "Youknow you're welcome--"

"Of course I do. All the same, I'm not taking any more, thanks. "

"But it's only a question of time. If you can't wait for Huckster's totake you on again, Mary and I can easily keep things going until youfind another job. "

"But that wouldn't be fair!"

"What wouldn't be fair?"

"To sponge on you two under false pretences. " "False pretences!" Lucyiterated blankly. 

"I was laid off last Saturday. I didn't say anything, but I've beenlooking for something else ever since--and this is Wednesday, and I'mthrough. I'm sick and tired. I've got just as much right as anybody tolive on society, and that's what I'm going to do from now on!"

Miss Spode lowered a cloth skirt over her head and blouse beforepursuing. "But what I can't understand is how--assuming you're inearnest--"

"Deadly earnest!" Sally declared. 

"--and mean to go through with this--how you think you'll get a startwithout doing something downright wrong. "

"It wouldn't be fair to tempt me the way I feel to-day. "

"There's only one thing, " Miss Spode announced, adjusting her hat, "that prevents me from speaking to a cop about you: I know you're afraud. You couldn't do anything dishonourable to save you. "

"Oh, couldn't I!" Sally returned ominously. "You wait and see!"

"Well, well, " said the other indulgently, "have it your own way. Hooray for crime! But if I stop here listening to you preachanarchy I'll be late for Sammy. So I'm off. " Pausing in the doorway, she looked back with just a trace of doubt colouring her regard. "Dotry to brace up and be sensible, honey. I'm worried about leaving youalone with all these blue devils. "

"You needn't be. I can take care of myself--"

"Well, promise to do nothing rash before I come home. "

"Promises made for keeps are specifically prohibited by article nineof the Social Pirate's Letters of Marque. But I don't mind telling youthe chances are you'll find me on the roof when you get back, unlessthis heat lets up. I'm going up now; this place is simplysuffocating!"

But her smile grew dim as she resigned herself to an evening whoseloneliness promised to be unbroken; that faint flush faded which hadcrept into her cheeks in the course of her half-whimsical, half-serious harangue; she looked once more what life had made her--awork-worn shop-girl, of lack-lustre charm, on the verge of prematurelymiddle-aged, hopeless spinsterhood. 

Another six months of this life would break her, body and spirit, beyond repair. 

Her eyes, that ranged the confines of those mean quarters, darkenedquickly with their expression of jaded discontent. 

Another six months? She felt as if she could not suffer another sixhours. . . . 

After a time she rose and moved languidly out into the hall, fromwhich an iron ladder led up through a scuttle to the roof, the refugeand retreat of the studio's tenants on those breathless, interminablesummer nights when their quarters were unendurably stuffy. Here theywere free to lounge at ease, _en déshabillé_; neither the dressmakernor the teacher of voice-production ever troubled their privacy, andseldom did other figures appear on any of the roofs which ran to thePark Avenue corner on an exact plane broken only by low dividing wallsand chimney-stacks. 

Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furnitureof this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of thecopings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dustfrom which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like witheredelfin limbs. 

Selecting the soundest chair, Sally dragged it into the shadow cast bythe hood of the studio top-light, and settling down with her feet onthe adjacent coping, closed her eyes and sought to relax from hertemper of high, almost hysterical nervous tension. 

Thoughts bred of her talk with Lucy for a time distracted her, blending into incoherent essays at imaginative adventures staged inthe homes and parks of the wealthy, as pictured by the sycophanticfashion magazine and cast with the people of its gallery ofphotographs--sublimely smart women in frocks of marvellousinspiration, and polo-playing, motor-driving, clothes-mad men of aninsouciance appalling. 

On the edge of unconsciousness she said aloud, but without knowingthat she spoke, three words. 

These were: "Charmeuse . . . Paquin . . . Bride . . . "

And then she slept; her pallid face upturned to that high-arched skyof brass, from which light and heat beat down in brutal waves, sheslept the sleep of exhaustion, deep and heavy; dark and stupefyingsleep possessed her utterly, as overpowering and obliterating asthough induced by drugs. 

CHAPTER II

BURGLARY

She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of somehalf-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclementfact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had comeon to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky. 

Without the least warning a blinding violet glare cut the gloom, theatmosphere quaked with a terrific shock of thunder, and the downpourbecame heavier. 

Appalled, the girl sprang from her chair and groped her way to thescuttle through a crepuscle resembling late twilight. 

It was closed. 

Somebody, presumably the janitor, had shut it against the impendingstorm without troubling to make sure there was no one on the roof, forher chair had been invisible behind the shoulder of the top-light. 

With a cry of dismay the girl knelt and, digging fingers beneath thecover, tugged with all her might. But it was securely hookedbeneath and held fast. 

Then, driven half frantic less by the lashing rain than by a dread oflightning which she had never outgrown, she stumbled back to the glassface of the top-light and pounded it with her fists, screaming to MaryWarden to come and let her in. But no lights showed in the studio, andno one answered; reluctantly she was persuaded that Mary was not yethome from rehearsals. 

The long rolling, grinding broadsides of thunder made almostcontinuous accompaniment--broken only by the briefestintermissions--to the fiery sword-play that slashed incessantlythrough and through that grim tilt of swollen black cloud. 

Half-stunned and wholly terrified, dazzled and deafened as well, thegirl dashed the rain from her eyes and strove to recollect her witsand grapple sanely with her plight. 

Already she was wet to her skin--water could no more harm her--but themad elemental tumult confounded all her senses; her sole consciousimpulse was to gain shelter of some sort from the sound and fury ofthe tempest. 

It was a bare chance that a scuttle on some one of the adjacent roofsmight be, at least, not fastened down. 

Fighting the buffeting wind, the scourging rain, and her panicfright, she gained the scuttle of the roof to the west, but found itimmovable. 

She tried the next roof, with no better fortune. 

Panting, even sobbing a little in her terror, she scrambled on througha sort of nightmarish progress to the next roof, and on and on to thenext and the next. 

She kept on reckoning, and couldn't have said how many roofs she hadcrossed, when at length she discovered a scuttle that was actuallyajar, propped wide to the pounding flood; and without pause to wonderat this circumstance, or what might be her reception and how toaccount for herself, she swung down into that hospitable black hole, found footing on the ladder, let herself farther down--and bymischance dislodged the iron arm supporting the cover. 

It fell with a bang and a click, and Sally barely escaped crushedfingers by releasing the rim and tumbling incontinently to the floor. 

Happily she hadn't far to fall, wasn't hurt, and hastily pickingherself up, stood half-dazed, listening for sounds of alarm within thehouse. 

Coincidently the storm sounded a crisis in a series of tremendous, shattering crashes, so heavy and so prolonged that all the worldseemed to rock and vibrate, echoing the uproar like a giganticsounding-board. 

This passed; but from the body of the house Sally heard nothing--onlythe crepitation of rain on the roof and the sibilant splatter of dropstrickling from her saturated skirts into the puddle that had formedbeneath the scuttle. 

She stood in what at first seemed unrelieved darkness--but forglimpses revealed by the incessant slash and flare of lightning--atone end of a short hallway, by the rail of a staircase well. Three orfour doors opened upon this hall; but she detected no sign of anymovement in the shadows, and still heard no sound. 

Wondering--and now, as she began to appreciate her position, almost asunhappy in her refuge as she had been in the storm--Sally crept to therail and peered down. But her straining senses detected nothing belowmore than shadows, solitude, and silence; which, however, failed toconvey reassurance; the fact of the open scuttle would seem toindicate that she hadn't stumbled into an uninhabited house. 

Stealthily she proceeded to investigate the several rooms of thattopmost story--servants' quarters, comfortably furnished, buttenantless. 

Then step by timid step she descended to the next floor, which shefound devoted to three handsomely appointed bedchambers, also empty. And slowly, as her courage served, another flight took her down to astory given over wholly to two bedchambers with baths, dressing-roomsand boudoirs adjoining, all very luxurious to a hasty survey. 

Below this again was an entrance hall, giving access to adrawing-room, a library, and, at the back of the house, a dining-room, each apartment in its way deepening the impression of a home towardwhose making wealth and good taste had worked in rarely harmoniouscollaboration. 

And finally the basement proved to be as deserted as any room above;this though the kitchen clock still ticked on stertorously, though thefire in the range had been banked rather than drawn, though one hadbut to touch the boiler to learn it still held water piping-hot. 

It required, however, only a moment's sober thought, once satisfiedshe was alone, to suggest as one reasonable solution to the puzzlethat the owners had fled town for the week-end, leaving theestablishment in care of untrustworthy servants, who had promptlyelected to seek their own pleasure elsewhere. 

Content with this theory, Sally chose one of the windows of theservants' dining-room from which to spy out stealthily, between theshade and the sill, over a flooded area and street; first remarking asensible modification of the gloom in spite of an unabated downpour, then that the house was near the Park Avenue corner, finally apoliceman sheltered in the tradesman's entrance of the dwellingacross the way. 

At this last disquieting discovery Sally retreated expeditiously fromthe window, for the first time realising that her presence in thathouse, however adventitious and innocent, wouldn't be easy to explainto one of a policeman's incredulous idiosyncrasy; the legal definitionof burglar, strictly applied, fitted Sarah Manvers with disconcertingneatness. 

But nobody knew; it was only half past six by the clock in thekitchen; it was reasonably improbable that the faithless servantswould come back much before midnight; and she need only wait for thestorm to pass to return across the roofs, or, for that matter, toleave circumspectly by the front door. For it would certainly be darkby the time the storm uttered its last surly growl and trailed itsbedraggled skirts off across Long Island. 

For an instant finely thrilled with a delicious sense of the wildadventure of being alone in a strange house, free to range and pry atwill, she found the full piquancy a bit difficult to relish withsodden clothing clinging clammily to her body and limbs. 

None the less it was quite without definite design that Sally retracedher way to that suite of rooms in the second story which seemed to bethe quarters of the mistress of the establishment; and it was nomore than common-sense precaution (prompted, it's true, by sheer, idlecuriosity) which moved her to darken windows already shuttered bydrawing their draperies of heavy, rose-coloured silk before switchingon the lights. 

It may have been merely the reflection of rose-tinted walls that lentthe face of the girl unwonted colour, but the glow that informed hereyes as she looked about was unquestionably kindled by envy as much asby excitement. 

Nothing, indeed, lacked to excite envy in that hungry heart of hers. The bedchamber and its boudoir and bath were not only exquisitelyappointed, but stood prepared for use at a moment's notice; the beditself was beautifully dressed; the dressing-table was decked with allmanner of scent-bottles, mirrors, and trays, together with everyconceivable toilet implement in tortoise-shell with a silver-inlaymonogram--apparently A-M-S; the rugs were silken, princely, priceless;elusive wraiths of seductive perfumes haunted the air like memories oflost caresses. 

And when the girl pursued her investigations to the point of openingclosed doors she found clothes-presses containing a wardrobe to copewith every imaginable emergency--frocks of silk, of lace, of satin, oflinen; gowns for dinner, the theatre, the street, the opera;boudoir-robes and negligees without end; wraps innumerable, hats, shoes, slippers, mules--and a treasure of lingerie to ravish anywoman's heart. 

And against all this sybaritic store the intruder had to set thefigure mirrored by a great cheval-glass--the counterfeit of a jadedshop-girl in shabby, shapeless, sodden garments, her damp, dark hairframing stringily a pinched and haggard face with wistful, care-worneyes. 

Her heart ached with a reawakened sense of the cruel unfairness oflife. Her flesh crept with the touch of her rain-soaked clothing. Andin her thoughts temptation stirred like a whispering serpent. 

Beyond dispute it was wrong, what she contemplated, utterly wrong, andwild to madness; but the girl was ripe for such temptation and frailwith a weakness due to long years of deprivation. Full half of herheart's desire was here, free to her covetous fingers, a queen'strousseau of beautiful belongings. 

"It's only for an hour. No one need ever know. I'll leave everythingjust as I found it. And I'm so uncomfortable!"

She hesitated a moment longer, but only a moment; of a suddensmouldering embers of jealousy and desire broke into devastatingflame, consuming doubts and scruples in a trice. Swift action ensued;this was no more an affair of conscience, but of persuasion andresistless impulse. She flew about like one possessed--as, indeed, shewas, no less. 

Her first move was to turn on hot water in the shining porcelain tub. Then, instinctively closing and locking the hall door, she slippedfrom her despised garments and, hanging them up to dry in a tiledcorner where their dampness could harm, nothing, slipped into thebath. . . . 

Half an hour later, deliciously caressed by garments of soft whitesilk beneath a feather-weight _robe-de-chambre_, she sat before thedressing-table, drying her hair in the warm draft of an electric fanand anointing face, hands, and arms with creams and delicately scentedlotions. 

A faint smile touched lips now guiltless of any hint of sullenness;she hummed softly to herself, whose heart had almost forgotten itsbirthright of song and laughter; never the least pang of conscienceflawed the serene surface of her content. 

Properly dressed, her hair was beautiful, soft, fine and plentiful, with a natural wave that lent an accent to its brownish lustre. Whenshe finished arranging it to her complete satisfaction she hardly knewthe face that smiled back at her from the mirror's depths. Miraculously it seemed to have gained new lines of charm; its verythinness was now attractive, its colour unquestionably intrinsic; andher eyes were as the eyes of a happy child, exulting in theattainment of long-coveted possessions. 

It wasn't in human nature to contemplate this transformation and feelcontrition for whatever steps had been necessary to bring it about. 

And when she could do no more to beautify her person Sally turnedagain to the clothes-press, by now so far gone in self-indulgence, hermoral sense so insidiously sapped by the sheer sensual delight she hadof all this pilfered luxury, that she could contemplate without aqualm less venial experiments with the law of _meum et tuum_. 

She entertained, in short, a project whose lawless daring enchantedher imagination, if one as yet of vague detail. But with command ofthe resources of this wonderful wardrobe, what was to prevent her fromappropriating a suitable costume and stealing forth, when the stormhad passed, to seek adventure, perhaps to taste for a night those joysshe had read about and dreamed about, longed for and coveted, all herlife long? Nothing could be more mad; there was no telling what mightnot happen; there was every warrant for believing that the outcomemight be most unpleasant. But adventures are to the adventurous; andsurely this one had started off propitiously enough!

"And what I need she'll never miss. Besides, I can send backeverything in the morning, anonymously, by parcel-post. It's onlyborrowing. "

Already she had passed from contemplation to purpose and stoodcommitted to the enterprise, reckless of its consequence. 

But she found it far from easy to make her selection; it wouldn't doto fare forth _en décolletée_ without an escort--a consideration thatsadly complicated the search for just the right thing, at once simpleand extravagant, modish and becoming. Moreover, any number ofcaptivating garments positively demanded to be tried on, then clungtenaciously to her pretty shoulders, refusing to be rejected. 

She wasted many a sigh over her choice, which was ultimately somethingdarkish, a frock (I think) of dark-blue _crépe-de-chine_, designedprimarily for afternoon wear, but, supplemented by a light silk wrap, quite presentable for evening; and it fitted to admiration. 

This question once settled, she experienced little trouble findingslippers and a hat to her taste. 

The testimony of a small gilt clock startled her when at length shestood ready for the next step in her nefarious career: the hour-handwas passing ten. That seemed almost incredible. 

Running into the unlighted boudoir, she caught back thewindow-draperies, raised the sash, and peered cautiously out throughthe slanted slats of the wooden blinds. 

The sky that now shone down upon the city was a fair shield of starsunblurred by cloud; the storm had passed without her knowledge. 

Closing the window, Sally delayed for one last, rapturous survey ofherself in the cheval-glass, then put out the lights and went to thedoor. 

She hardly knew why it was that she opened it so gently and waited solong upon the threshold, every nerve tensed to detect alien sound inthe stillness of the empty house. But it was as if with darkness thosevacant rooms and passages had become populous with strange, hostilespirits. She heard nothing whatever, yet it was with an effect ofperil strong upon her senses that she stole forth through the hallwayand up the stairs to the topmost floor, where, perched precariouslyupon the iron ladder, she tried her patience sorely with a stubbornscuttle-cover before recalling the click that had accompanied itsclosing--the click of a spring-latch. 

And this last, when gropingly located, proved equally obdurate; shefumbled doggedly until back and limbs ached with the strain of herposition; but her fingers lacked cunning to solve the secret; and inthe end, when on the point of climbing down to fetch matches, sheheard a sound that chilled her heart and checked her breath in atwinkling--an odd, scuffling noise on the roof. 

At first remote and confused, it drew nearer and grew moreclear--a sound of light footfalls on the sheet-tin. 

Her self-confidence and satisfaction measurably dashed, she climbeddown, so fearful of betraying herself to the person on the roof thatshe went to the absurd extreme of gathering her skirts up tightly tostill their silken murmur. 

Now she must leave by the street. And now she remembered the policemanwho kept nightly vigil at the avenue crossing!

She was beginning to be definitely frightened, vividly picturing toherself the punishment that must follow detection. 

And as she crept down-stairs, guided only by the banister-rail, thesense of her loneliness and helplessness there in that strange, darkplace worked upon the temper of the girl until her plight, howeverreal, was exaggerated hideously and endued with terrors so frightfulthat she was ready to scream at the least alarm. 

CHAPTER III

ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT

At the foot of the stairs Sally paused in the entry-hall, thoughtfullyconsidering the front door, the pale rectangle of whose plate-glasswas stenciled black with the pattern of a lace panel. But she decidedagainst risking that avenue of escape; it would be far less foolhardyto steal away _via_ the basement, unostentatiously, that thealways-possible passer-by might more readily take her for a servant. 

Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to gropeher way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertainsteps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood likea stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her verymarrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear. 

If she could not have said what precisely it was that she feared, herfright was no less desperately real. She could see nothing; she hadheard no sound; her hands had touched nothing more startling thanthe banister-rail, and yet . . . 

It was as if sensitive filaments of perceptions even finer than sight, touch, and hearing had found and recoiled from something strange andterrible skulking there, masked by the encompassing murk. 

Probably less than twenty seconds elapsed, but it seemed a long minutebefore her heart stirred anew, leaping into action with a quickenedbeat, and she was able to reassert command of her reason and--reassured, persuaded her fright lacked any real foundation--move on. 

Five paces more brought her to the elbow of the rail; here, in thevery act of turning to follow it down to the basement, she haltedinvoluntarily, again transfixed with terror. 

But this time her alarm had visible excuse; that there was somethingwrong in that strange house, so strangely deserted, was evident beyonddispute. 

She stood facing the dining-room door, the door to the library on herleft; if not in any way evident to her senses, she could fix itsposition only approximately by an effort of memory. But through theformer opening her vision, ranging at random, instinctively seekingrelief from the oppression of blank darkness, detected a slender beamof artificial light no thicker than a lead-pencil--a golden blade thatlanced the obscurity, gleaming dull upon a rug, more bright onnaked parquetry, vivid athwart the dust-cloth shrouding thedining-table. 

For a moment or two the girl lingered, unstirring, fascinated by thatslender, swerveless ray; then, slowly, holding her breath, urgedagainst her will by importunate curiosity, she crossed the thresholdof the dining-room, following the light back to its source--a narrowcrack in the folding doors communicating with the library. 

Now Sally remembered clearly that the folding doors had been wide openat the time of her first tour of investigation; as, indeed, had thedoor between the library and hall--now tight shut, else this lightwould have been perceptible in the hall as well. 

It was undeniable, then, that since she had closeted herself up-stairsanother person had entered the house--some one who had shut himself upthere in the library for a purpose apparently as clandestine as herown. Or why such pains to mask the light, and why such care not todisturb the silence of the house?

To have gone on and made good an escape without trying to read thisriddle would have been hardly human of the girl, for all hermisgivings; she stole on to the folding doors with less noise than amouse had made and put an eye to the crack, which, proving somewhatwider than she had imagined, afforded a fair view of the bestpart of the other room. 

An electric chandelier was on full-blaze above the broad and heavycentre-table of mahogany, beyond which, against the farther wall, stood on the one hand a bookcase, on the other a desk of the roll-toptype--closed. Above each of these the wall was decorated with trophiesof ancient armour; between them hung a huge canvas in a massive giltframe--the portrait of a beautiful woman beautifully painted. Andimmediately beneath the portrait stood a young man, posed in profoundabstraction, staring at the desk. 

He rested lightly against the table, his back square to Sally's view, revealing a well-turned head thatched with dark hair, clipped snuglyby well-formed ears, and the salient line of one lean, brown cheek. But even so, with his countenance hidden, something conveyed a strongimpression to the girl of a perplexed and disconcerted humour. 

She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had thought todiscover a burglar of one or another accepted type--either a dashingcracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, ora common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven burly brute in the rags andtatters of a tramp. But this man wore unromantic blue serge upon aperson neither fascinating nor repellent. She could hardlyimagine him either stealing a diamond tiara or hopping a freight. 

But that he was of a truly criminal disposition she was not permittedlong to doubt; for in another moment he started from his pensive posewith the animation of one inspired, strode alertly to the wall, stepped up on the seat of a chair beside the desk, and straining ontiptoes (though tolerably tall) contrived to grasp the handle of ashort-bladed Roman sword which formed part of one of the trophies. 

With some difficulty and, in the end, a grunt of satisfaction, heworked the weapon loose and, jumping down, turned to the desk, thrustthe point of the sword between the writing-pad and the edge of theroll-top, forced the blade well in, and bore all his weight upon thehaft of this improvised jimmy. Promptly, with a sound of rending wood, the top flew half-way up. 

At this the man released the sword, which fell with a thump to the rugat his feet, pushed the top as far back as it would go, and, bendingover the desk, explored its rack of pigeonholes and drawers. One ofthe latter eventually yielded the object of his search; he took fromit first a small automatic pistol, which he placed carelessly to oneside, then a small leather-bound book whose pages he thumbed innervous haste, evidently seeking some memorandum essential to hisends. This found, he paused, conned it attentively for aninstant, then turned and took the book with him across the room beyondthe bookcase, thus vanishing from the field of Sally's vision. 

Now was her chance to slip down-stairs and, undetected, away. But, surprisingly enough, she proved of two minds about advantaging herselfof the opportunity. To begin with, she was no more afraid--at least, not to any great extent. What, she argued scornfully, was one man, after all?--especially one who had no more lawful business than sheupon those premises! She wasn't afraid of men; and even were this oneto catch her watching him (something Sally meant to take good care heshouldn't) he could hardly denounce her to the police. Besides, what_was_ he up to, anyhow, over there in that corner, out of sight? Shesimply had to know the meaning of those noises he was making. 

They were difficult to diagnose--an odd whirring sound broken byrepeated muffled clanks and by several others as baffling, notably amuted metallic knocking and rattling. 

She experienced an exasperating effect of trying to see round acorner. 

But in the end she identified those sounds beyond mistake: the man wasfretting the combination of a safe, pausing now and again to try thehandle. For what, indeed, had he forced that desk if not to findthe combination?

In due course the noises ceased and the malefactor re-appeared, bringing with him a morocco-bound box of good size. She made no doubtwhatever that this was a jewel-case, and took his smile forconfirmation of her surmise, though it was really less a smile thansatisfaction twitching the full lips beneath his dark little moustache(one of those modishly flat affairs so widely advertised bycollarmakers). 

For now the miscreant was facing Sally as he bent over the table andfumbled with the lock of the jewel-case, and she made good use of thischance to memorise a countenance of mildly sardonic cast, notunhandsome--the face of a conventional modern voluptuary, self-conscious, self-satisfied, selfish--rather attractive withal inthe eyes of an excited young woman. 

But a moment later, finding the case to be fast-locked, the burglargave utterance to an exclamation that very nearly cost him his appealto her admiration. She couldn't hear distinctly, for the impatientmonosyllable was breathed rather than spoken, but at that distance itsounded damnably like "_Pshaw!_"

And immediately the man turned back to the desk to renew hisrummaging--in search of a key to fit the case, she guessed. But hisbusiness there was surprisingly abbreviated--interrupted in afashion certainly as startling to him as to her who skulked and spiedon the dark side of the folding doors. 

Neither received the least intimation that the door from the libraryto the hall had been opened. Sally, for one, remained firmly persuadedthat they two were alone in the silent house until the instant whenshe saw a second man hurl himself upon the back of the first--aswift-moving shape of darkness, something almost feline in his grim, violent fury that afforded the victim no time either to turn or tolift a hand in self-defence. In a twinkling the two went headlong tothe floor and disappeared, screened by the broad top of the table. 

There, presumably, Blue Serge recovered sufficiently from the shock ofsurprise to make some show of fighting back. Confused sounds ofscuffling and hard breathing became audible, with a thump or twodeadened by the rug; but more than that, nothing--never a word fromeither combatant. There was something uncanny in the silence of itall. 

For an instant Sally remained where she was, rooted in fright andwonder; but the next, and without in the least understanding how shehad come there, she found herself by the open door in the entry-hall, just beyond the threshold of the library, commanding an unobstructedview of the conflict. 

Apparently this neared its culmination. Though he had gone downface forward, Blue Serge had contrived to turn over on his back, inwhich position he now lay, still struggling, but helpless, beneath thebulk of his assailant--a burly, blackavised scoundrel who straddledthe chest of his prey, a knee pinning down either arm, both hands busywith efforts to make an unappetising bandana serve as a gag. 

Pardonably rewarded for this inconsiderate treatment, the fat onesuddenly snatched one hand away, conveyed a bitten finger to hismouth, instantly spat it out together with a gust of masterfulprofanity and, the other taking advantage of the opportunity to renewhis struggles, shifted his grip to Blue Serge's throat and, bendingforward, strove with purpose undoubtedly murderous to get possessionof the short Roman sword. 

It lay just an inch beyond his reach. He strained his utmost towardit, almost touched its haft with eager finger-tips. 

At this a strange thing happened--strangest of all to Sally. For she, who never in her life had touched firearm or viewed scene of violencemore desperate than a schoolboy squabble, discovered herself insidethe library, standing beside the desk and levelling at the head of theheavy villain the automatic pistol that had rested there. 

Simultaneously she was aware of the sound of her own voice, itsaccents perhaps a bit shaky, but none the less sharp, crying: "Stop!Don't you dare! Drop that sword and put up your hands! I say, put upyour hands!"

The stout assassin started back and turned up to the amazingapparition of her a ludicrous mask of astonishment, eyes agoggle, mouth agape, pendulous beard-rusty chin aquiver like some unsavourysort of jelly. Then slowly--thanks to something convincing in themanner of this young woman, aflame as she was with indignantchampionship of the under dog--he elevated two grimy hands to a pointof conspicuous futility; and a husky whisper; like a stifled roar, rustled past his lips:

"Well, can yuh beat it?"

A thrill of self-confidence galvanised the person of Miss Manvers, steadying at once her hand and her voice. 

"Get up!" she snapped. "No--keep your hands in sight. Get up somehow, and be quick about it!"

Without visible reluctance, if with some difficulty, like a clumsyautomaton animated by unwilling springs, the fat scoundrel lurchedawkwardly to his feet and paused. 

"Very good. " She was surprised at the cold, level menace of her tone. "Now stand back--to the wall! Quick!"

She was abruptly interrupted by a vast, discordant bellow: "Look out, lady! Look out! That gun might go off!"

And as if hoping by that sudden and deafening roar to startle her offguard, the man started toward her, but pulled up as quickly, dashedand sullen. For she did not flinch an inch. 

"That's your lookout!" she retorted incisively. "If you're afraid ofit--stand back and keep your hands up!"

With a flicker of a sheepish grin the rogue obeyed, falling back untilhis shoulders touched the wall and keeping his hands level with hisears. 

Still holding the pistol ready, the girl shifted her glance to BlueSerge. 

He had already picked himself up, and now stood surveying his allywith a regard which wavered between amaze and admiration, suspicionand surprise. Meanwhile he felt gingerly of his throat, as if it werestill sore, and nervously endeavoured to readjust a collar which hadbroken from its moorings. Catching her inquiring eye, he bowedjerkily. 

"Thanks!" he panted. "I--ah--good of you, I'm sure--"

She checked him coolly. "Take your time--plenty of it, you know--getyour breath and pull yourself together. "

He laughed uncertainly. "Ah--thanks again. Just a minute. I'm--ah--as dumfounded as grateful, you know. "

She nodded with a curtness due to disillusionment; the man waspalpably frightened; and, whatever his excuse, a timid Raffles was asorry object in her esteem at that instant. She had anticipated ofhim--she hardly knew what--something brilliant, bold, and dashing, something as romantic as one has every right to expect of a hero ofromantic fiction. But this one stood panting, trembling, "sparring forwind, " for all the world like any commonplace person fresh from roughhandling!

It was most disappointing, so much so that she conceded grudgingly thetestimony of her senses to the rapidity with which he regained hisnormal poise and command of resource; for one evidence of which lastshe noted that he backed up to the centre-table with a casual air, asif needing its support, and with a deft, certain, swift gestureslipped the jewel-case into his coatpocket. And she noted, too, aflash of anxiety in his eyes, as if he were wondering whether she hadnoticed. 

At this she lost patience. "Well?" she said briskly. "If you've hadtime to think--"

"To be sure, " Blue Serge returned easily. "You mean, about thisgentleman? If you ask me, I think he'd be far less potentiallymischievous facing the wall. "

"All right, " Sally agreed, and added with a fine flourish of thepistol: "Face about, you!"

With flattering docility the fat rascal faced about. "And now, " BlueSerge suggested, "by your leave--"

Drawing near the girl, he held out his hand for the pistol, and to herown surprise she surrendered it without demur, suddenly conscious thathe was no more afraid, that he was rapidly assuming comprehensivecommand of the situation beyond her to gainsay, and that he knew, andknew that she knew he knew, that she had never entertained any realintention of pulling the trigger, however desperate the emergency. 

And incontinently, as though he had taken away all her courage, together with that nickel-plated symbol, she started back, almostcringing in a panic of sadly jangled nerves. 

Happily for her conceit, once he had disarmed her, Blue Sergetransferred his interest exclusively to his late assailant. 

Calmly showing the girl his back, he stepped over, poked the pistol'snose significantly into the folds of the ruffian's neck, and with asharp word of warning slapped smartly his two hips; in consequence ofwhich singular performance he thrust a hand beneath the tail of thefellow's coat and brought away a bull-dog revolver of heavy calibre. 

And then he stepped back, smiling, with a sidelong glance of triumphfor Sally's benefit--a glance that spent itself on emptiness. 

For Sally was no more there; her uninstructed fingers were alreadyfumbling with the fastenings of the front door when Blue Sergediscovered her defection. 

CHAPTER IV

BLACKMAIL

There was a breathless instant while the combination of knobs, bolts, and locks defied her importunity so obstinately that Sally was temptedto despair. 

She dared not look behind her; but momentarily, as she groped, fumbled, and trembled at the front door, she was aware that a man hadbacked out of the library into the hall and paused there in the gushof light, staring after her. 

And when the door suddenly yielded she heard--or fancied that sheheard--his voice, its accent peremptory: "Stop!" Or perhaps it was:"Wait!"

She did neither; the door slammed behind her with a crash thatthreatened its glass; she was at the foot of the front steps beforethat sound had fairly registered on her consciousness; and herpanic-winged heels had carried the young woman well round the cornerand into Park Avenue before she appreciated how interesting hertempestuous flight from that rather thoroughly burglarised mansionwould be apt to seem to a peg-post policeman. And then she pulledup short, as if reckoning to divert suspicion with a semblance ofnonchalance--now that she had escaped. 

But a covert glance aside brought prompt reassurance; after all, thegods were not unkind; the policeman was just then busy on the far sideof the avenue, hectoring humility into the heart of an unhappy taxicaboperator who had, presumably, violated some minor municipal ordinance. 

Inconsistently enough--so strong is the habit of a law-abidingmind--the sight of that broad, belted, self-sufficient back, symbolicof the power and sanity of the law, affected Sally with a mad impulseto turn, hail the officer, and inform him of the conditions she hadjust quitted. And she actually swerved aside, as if to cross theavenue, before she realised how difficult it would be to invoke thelaw without implicating herself most damningly. 

Recognition of that truth was like receiving a dash of ice-water inher face; she gasped, cringed, and scurried on up Park Avenue as ifhoping to outdistance thought. A forlorn hope, that: refreshed fromits long rest (for since the storm she had been little better than thepuppet of emotions, appetites, and inarticulate impulses) her mind hadresumed its normal functioning. 

Inexorably it analysed her plight and proved that what she hadconceived in an hour of discontent and executed on the spur of anenvious instant could nevermore be undone. What had been planned to bemere temporary appropriation of an outfit of clothing--"to be returnedin good order, reasonable wear and tear excepted"--was one thing;safe-breaking, with the theft of Heaven only knew what treasure, wasquite another. As to that, had she not been guilty of activecomplicity in the greater crime? How could she be sure (come to thinkof it) that the stout man had not been the lawful caretaker ratherthan a rival housebreaker?

She had indeed commenced adventures with a vengeance!

The police were bound to learn of the affair all too soon; her part init was as certain to become known; too late she was reminded that thename "Manvers" indelibly identified every garment abandoned in thebath-room. Before morning certainly, before midnight probably, SarahManvers would be the quarry of a clamorous hue-and-cry. 

Appalled, she hurried on aimlessly, now and again breaking intodesperate little jog-trots, with many a furtive glance over shoulder, with as many questing roundabout for refuge or resource. 

But the city of that night wore a visage new and strange to her, andterrifying. The very quietness of those few residential blocks, marooned amid ever-rising tides of trade, had an ominous accent. All the houses seemed to have drawn together, cheek by jowl, in secretconference on her case, sloughing their disdainful daytime pose andfollowing her fugitive, guilty figure with open amusement andcontempt. Some (she thought) leered horribly at her, others scowled, others again assumed a scornful cast; one and all pretended to ahideous intelligence, as though they knew and, if they would, couldsay what and why she fled. 

It was as if the storm had been a supernatural visitation upon thecity, robbing it of every intimate, homely aspect, leaving itinhumanly distorted in an obsession of abominable enchantment. 

With the start of one suddenly delivered from dream-haunted sleep, shefound herself arrived at Forty-Second Street, and safe; none pursuedher, nothing in her manner proclaimed the new-fledged malefactor; sheneed only observe ordinary circumspection to escape notice altogether. And for several moments she remained at a complete standstill there onthe corner, blocking the fairway of foot traffic and blindly surveyingthe splendid facade of Grand Central Station, spellbound in wonder atthe amazing discovery that Providence did not always visit incontinentretribution upon the heads of sinners--since it appeared that she whohad sinned was to escape scot-free. 

With this she was conscious of a flooding spirit of exultantimpenitence; the deadly monotony of her days was done with once andfor all. It mattered little that--since it were suicidal to return tothe studio, the first place the police would search for her--she washomeless, friendless, penniless; it mattered little that she washungry (now that she remembered it) and had not even a change ofclothing for the morrow; these things would somehow bearranged--whether by luck or by virtue of her wit--they _must!_

All that really mattered was that the commonplace was banished fromher ways, that she was alive, foot-loose and fancy-free, finally anddefinitely committed to the career of an adventuress. 

Paradoxically, she was appalled by contemplation of her amazingcallousness; outlawed, _declassée_, she was indifferent to herdegradation, and alive only to the joy of freedom from the bondage ofany certain social status. 

Now as she lingered on the corner, people were passing her continuallyon their way over to the terminal; and one of these presently caughther attention--a man who, carrying a small oxford hand-bag, came uphastily from behind, started to cross the street, drew back barely intime to escape annihilation at the wheels of a flying squadron oftaxicabs, and so for a moment waited, in impatient preoccupationwith his own concerns, only a foot or two in advance but whollyheedless of the girl. 

Sally caught her breath sharply, and her wits seemed to knit togetherwith a sort of mental click; the man was Blue Serge, identifiedunmistakably to her eyes by the poise of his blue-clad person--thesame Blue Serge who owed his life to Sally Manvers!

In another instant the way cleared and the man moved smartly on again, with every indication of one spurred on by an urgent errand--but wentno more alone. Now a pertinacious shadow dogged him to the farthersidewalk, into the yawning vestibule of the railway station, on (at atrot) through its stupendous lobbies, even to the platform gates thatwere rudely slammed in his face by implacable destiny in the guise andlivery of a gateman. 

At this, pausing a little to one side, Sally watched Blue Serge accostthe guardian, argue, protest, exhibit tickets, and finally endeavourto bribe a way past the barrier. But the train was already pullingout; with a shake of his stubborn head the uniformed official movedon; and ruminating on a power of pent profanity, Blue Serge turned andstrode back into the waiting-room, passing so near to Sally that theirelbows almost touched without his rousing to the least recognition ofher existence. 

But that in itself was nothing to dismay or check the girl in herpurpose, and when Blue Serge a minute later addressed himself tothe Pullman bureau she was still his shadow--an all but openeavesdropper upon his communications with the authority of thebrass-barred wicket. 

"I've just missed the eleven ten for Boston, " she heard him explain ashe displayed tickets on the marble ledge, "and, of course, I'm out myberth reservation. Can you give me a lower on the midnight express?"

"No, " Authority averred with becoming sententiousness. 

"An upper, then?"

"Nothing left an the midnight. "

"Not even a stateroom?"

"I told you nothing doing. "

"Well, then, perhaps you can fix me up for the Owl train?"

"Wait a minute. "

A pause ensued while Authority consulted his records; not a longpause, but one long enough to permit a wild, mad inspiration to flashlike lightning athwart the clouded horizon of Sally's doubt andperplexity. Surely it were strangely inconsistent with her role ofadventuress to permit this man to escape, now that destiny haddelivered him into her unscrupulous hands!

"Owl train? De luxe room or ordinary stateroom--all I got left. "

"Good enough. I'll take--"

If Blue Serge failed promptly to nominate his choice, it was onlybecause Miss Manvers chose that juncture to furnish him--andincidentally herself, when she had time to think things over--withwhat was unquestionably for both of them the most staggering surpriseof that most surprising night. 

Peremptorily plucking a blue-serge sleeve with the brazenest impudenceimaginable, she advised her victim:

"Take both, if you please!"

Had she schemed deliberately to strike him dumb in consternation, hersuccess must have afforded Sally intense satisfaction. Since shehadn't, her personal consternation was momentarily so overpowering asto numb her sense of appreciation. So that for the period of a longminute neither of them moved nor spoke; but remained each with a blankcountenance reflecting a witless mind, hypnotised by the stupefactionof the other. 

Then, perhaps a shade the quicker to recover, Sally fancied that hervictim's jaw had slackened a bit and his colour faded perceptibly; andwith this encouragement she became herself again, collected, aggressive, confronting him undismayed before recognition dawned uponBlue Serge, and, with it, some amused appreciation of her effrontery. Even so, his first essay at response was nothing more formidablethan a stammered "I beg your pardon?"

She explained with absolute composure: "I said, take both rooms, please. I'm going to Boston, too. "

"Oh!" he replied stupidly. 

She nodded with determination and glanced significantly aside, with alittle toss of her head, toward the middle of the lobby. 

"There's a Central Office man over there, " she observed obliquely, dissembling considerable uncertainty as to what a Central Office manreally was, and why. 

"There is!"

"If you go to Boston, I go, " she persisted stolidly. His countenancedarkened transiently with distrust or temper. Then of a sudden the manwas shaken by a spasm of some strange sort--the corners of his mouthtwitched, his eyes twinkled, he lifted a quizzical eyebrow, his lipsparted. 

But whatever retort he may have contemplated was checked by theaccents of Authority and the tapping of an imperative pencil on thewindow-ledge. 

"Say, I'm busy. Which are you going to take now, de luxe room or--"

"Both!" With the dexterity of a stage conjurer Blue Serge whipped abill from his pocket and thrust it beneath the wicket, not for aninstant detaching his gaze from Sally. "And quick, " said he; "I'min a hurry!"

Grunting resentfully, Authority proceeded to issue the reservations, thus affording Sally, constrained to return without a tremor thesteadfast regard of her burglar, time to appreciate the lengths towhich bravado had committed her. And though she stood her groundwithout flinching, her cheeks had taken on a hue of bright crimsonbefore Blue Serge, without troubling to verify them, seized ticketsand change and turned squarely to her. 

"Now that's settled, " he inquired amiably, "what next?"

The better to cover her lack of a ready answer, she made believe toconsult the mellow orb of the four-faced clock that crowns the bureauof information. 

"The Owl train leaves when?" she asked with a finely speculative air. 

"One o'clock. "

"Then we've got over an hour and a half to wait!"

"How about a bite of supper? The station restaurant is justdown-stairs--"

"Thank you, " she agreed with a severe little nod. 

Lugging his bag, he led the way with the air of one receiving ratherthan conferring a favour. 

"Curious how things fall out, " he observed cheerfully; "isn't it?"

"Yes--"

"I mean, your popping up like this just when I was thinking of you. Coincidence, you know. "

"Coincidences, " Sally informed him consciously, "are caviar only tobook critics. There's nothing more common in real life. "

He suffered this instruction with a mildly anguished smile. 

"That's true, I presume, if one knows anything about real life. Idon't go in for realistic novels you see, so can't say. But you'reright one way: it isn't anything extraordinary, come to consider it, that you and I, both headed for Boston, should run into each otherhere. By the way, " he added with a casual air, "speaking ofcoincidences, it sort of triple-plated this one to have your friendfrom Central Office hanging round so handy, didn't it? If he's insight, why not be a sport and tip me off?"

"I don't see the necessity, " Sally returned, biting her lip--"yet. "

"Not from your point of view, perhaps--from mine, yes. Forewarned isfortunate, you know. "

"I dare say. "

"You won't put me wise?"

"Certainly not. "

"Well, of course, one can guess why. "

"Can one?"

"Why, forgive me for calling your bluff, it wouldn't be safe, would it? Of course, I'm a sure-enough bad man--and all that. But youmust be a bird of my feather, or you wouldn't flock together sospontaneously. "

Sally opened her eyes wide and adopted a wondering drawl known to havebeen of great service to Miss Lucy Spode: "Why, whatever do you mean?"

"Good!" Blue Serge applauded. "Now I _know_ where I stand. That babystare is the high sign of our fraternity--of blackbirds. Only theguilty ever succeed in looking as transparently innocent. Too bad youdidn't think of that in time. "

"I don't follow you, " she said truthfully, beginning to feel that shewasn't figuring to great advantage in this passage of repartee. 

"I mean, your give-away is calculated to cramp your style; now youcan't very well cramp mine, threatening to squeal. "

"Oh, can't I?"

"No. I know you won't go through with it; not, that is, unless you'rewilling to face Sing Sing yourself. For that matter, I don't see howyou're going to make Boston at all to-night, after that break, unlessyou go on your own; I don't believe I'm scared enough to stand forbeing shaken down for your transportation. "

He was gaining the whip-hand much too easily. She averted her face tomask a growing trepidation and muttered sullenly: "What makes youthink I'm afraid--?"

"Oh, come!" he chuckled. "I know you hadn't any lawful business inthat house, don't I?"

"How do you know it?"

"Because if you had, I would now be going peaceful, with the kindpoliceman instead of being a willing victim of a very pleasant form ofblackmail. "

Burning with indignation and shivering a bit with fear of the man, shestopped short, midway down the ramp to the "lower level, " andmomentarily contemplated throwing herself upon his mercy and crawlingout of it all with whatever grace she might; but his ironic andskeptical smile provoked her beyond discretion. 

"Oh, very well!" she said ominously, turning, "if that's the way youfeel about it, we may as well have this thing out here and now. "

And she made as if to go back the way she had come; but his hand fellupon her arm with a touch at once light and imperative. 

"Steady!" he counselled quietly. "This is no place for eitherbickering or barefaced confidences. Besides, you mustn't take thingsso much to heart. I was only making fun, and you deserved as much foryour cheek, you know. Otherwise, there's no harm done. If you hankerto go to Boston, go you shall, and no thanks to me. Even if I dopay the bill, I owe you a heap more than I'll ever be able to repay, chances are. So take it easy; and I say, do brace up and make a bluff, at least, of being on speaking terms. I'm not a bad sort, but I'mgoing to stick to you like grim death to a sick nigger's bedside untilwe know each other better. That's flat, and you may as well resignyourself to it. And here we are. "

Unwillingly, almost unaware, she had permitted herself to be drawnthrough the labyrinth of ramps to the very threshold of therestaurant, where, before she could devise any effectual means ofreasserting herself, a bland head waiter took them in tow and, at BlueSerge's direction, allotted them a table well over to one side of theroom, out of earshot of their nearest neighbours. 

Temporarily too fagged and flustered to react either to the danger orto the novelty of this experience, or even to think to any goodpurpose, Sally dropped mechanically into the chair held for her, wondering as much at herself for accepting the situation as at themasterful creature opposite, earnestly but amiably conferring with thehead waiter over the bill of fare. 

Surely a strange sort of criminal, she thought, with his humour andready address, his sudden shifts from slang of the street to phraseschosen with a discriminating taste in English, his coolindifference to her threatening attitude, and his paradoxical pose ofwarm--it seemed--personal interest in and consideration for a completeand, to say the least, very questionable stranger. 

She even went so far as to admit that she might find him very likable, if only it were not for that affected little moustache and thatsemi-occasional trick he practised of looking down his nose when hetalked. 

On the other hand, one assumed, all criminals must seem strange typesto the amateur observer. Come to think of it, she had no standard tomeasure this man by, and knew no law that prescribed for his kindeither dress clothing with an inverness and a mask of polishedimperturbability, or else a pea-jacket, a pug-nose, a cauliflower ear, with bow legs and a rolling gait. . . . 

"There, I fancy that will do. But hurry it along, please. "

"Very good, sir--immediately. "

The head waiter ambled off, and Blue Serge faced Sally with an odd, illegible smile. 

"At last!" he hissed in the approved manner of melodrama, "we arealone!"

She wasn't able to rise to his irresponsible humour. Thus far heraudacity seemed to have earned her nothing but his derision. He wasnot in the least afraid of her--and _he_ was a desperatecriminal. Then what was she in his esteem?

Such thoughts drove home a fresh painful realisation of her ambiguouspersonal status. It began to seem that she had been perhaps a littlehasty in assuming she was to be spared punishment for her sin, howevervenial that might in charity be reckoned. Chance had, indeed, offeredwhat was apparently a broad and easy avenue of escape; but her ownvoluntary folly has chosen the wrong turning. 

Her hands were twisted tight together in her lap as she demanded withtense directness:

"What have you done with them?"

He lifted the ironic eyebrow. "_Them?_"

"The jewels. I saw you steal them--watched you from the dining-room, through the folding doors--"

"The deuce you did!"

"I saw you break open the desk--and everything. "

"Well, " he admitted fairly, "I'm jiggered!"

"What have you done with them?"

"Oh, the jewels?" he said with curious intonation. "Ah--yes, to besure; the jewels, of course. You're anxious to know what I've donewith them?"

"Oh, no, " she countered irritably; "I only ask out of politeness. "

"Thoughtful of you!" he laughed. "Why, they're outside, of course--inmy bag. "

"Outside?"

"Didn't you notice? I checked it with my hat, rather than have a row. I ought to be ashamed of myself, I know, but I'm a moral coward beforea coat-room attendant. I remember keeping tabs one summer, and--willyou believe me?--a common, ordinary, every-day three-dollar straw lidset me back twenty-two dollars and thirty cents in tips. But I hopeI'm not boring you. "

"Oh, how can you?" she protested, lips tremulous with indignation. 

"Don't flatter; I bore even myself at times. "

"I don't mean that, and you know I don't. How can you sit there jokingwhen you--when you've just--"

"Come off the job?" he caught her up as she faltered. "But why not? Ifeel anything but sad about it. It was a good job--wasn't it?--a cleanhaul, a clear getaway. Thanks, of course, to you. "

She responded, not without some difficulty: "Please! I wouldn't havedared if he hadn't tried to get at that sword. "

"Just like him, too!" Blue Serge observed with a flash of indignation:"his kind, I mean--less burglars than bunglers, with no professionalpride, no decent instincts, no human consideration. _They_ neverstop to think it's tough enough for a householder to come home to acracked crib without finding a total stranger to boot--a man he'snever even _seen_ before, like as not--ah--weltering on thepremises--"

"Oh, do be serious!"

"Must I? If you wish. "

The man composed his features to a mask of whimsical attention. 

"What--what did you do with him?" the girl stammered after a pauseduring which consciousness of her disadvantage became only more acute. 

"Our active little friend, the yegg? Why, I didn't do anything withhim. "

"You didn't leave him there'?"

"Oh, no; he went away, considerately enough--up-stairs and outthrough the scuttle--the way he broke in, you know. Surprisingly spryon his feet for a man of his weight and age--had all I could do tokeep up. He did stop once, true, as if he'd forgotten something, butthe sword ran into him--I happened thoughtlessly to be carryingit--only a quarter of an inch or so--and he changed his mind, and bythe time I got my head through the scuttle he was gone--vanishedutterly from human ken!"

"He had broken the scuttle open, you say?"

"Pried it up with a jimmy. "

"And you left it so? He'll go back. "

"No, he won't. I found hammer and nails and made all fast before Ileft. "

"But, " she demanded, wide-eyed with wonder, "why did you take thattrouble?"

"My silly conceit, I presume. I couldn't bear the thought of havingthat roughneck return and muss up one of my neatest jobs. "

"I don't understand you at all, " she murmured, utterly confounded. 

"Nor I you, if it matters. Still, I'm sure you won't keep me muchlonger in suspense, considering how open-faced I've been. But here'sthat animal of a waiter again. "

She was willingly silent, though she exerted herself to seem at easewith indifferent success. The voice of her companion was like adistant, hollow echo in her hearing; her wits were all awhirl, hernerves as taut and vibrant as banjo-strings; before her vision theface of Blue Serge swam, a flesh-tinted moon now and again traversedby a flash of white when he smiled. 

"Come!" the man rallied her sharply, if in an undertone, "this willnever do. You're as white as a sheet, trembling and staring as if Iwere a leper--or a relation by marriage or--something repulsive!"

She sat forward mechanically and mustered an uncertain smile. "Forgive me. I'm a little overwrought--the heat and--everything. "

"Not another word, then, till you've finished. I'll do the talking, ifit's all the same to you. But you needn't answer--needn't listen, forthat matter. I've no pride in my conversational powers, and youmustn't risk losing your appetite. "

He seemed to find it easy enough to make talk; but Sally spared himlittle attention, being at first exclusively preoccupied with thedemands of her hunger, and later--as the meal progressed, renewing herphysical strength and turning the ebbing tide of herspirits--thoroughly engaged with the problem of how to extricateherself from this embarrassing association or, if extrication provedimpossible, how to turn it to her own advantage. For if the affairwent on this way--his way--she were a sorry adventuress indeed. 

Small cups of black coffee stood before them, steaming, when aquestion roused her, and she shook herself together and faced herburglar across the cloth, once more full mistress of her faculties. 

"You're feeling better'?"

"Very much, " she smiled, "and thank you!"

"Don't make me uncomfortable; remember, this is all your fault. 

"That I'm here, alive and whole, able to enjoy a most uniquesituation. _Who are you?_"

But she wasn't to be caught by any such simple stratagem as a questionplumped suddenly at her with all the weight of a rightful demand; shesmiled again and shook her head. 

"Shan't tell. "

"But if I insist?"

"Why don't you, then?"

"Meaning insistence won't get me anything?"

Sensitive to the hint of a hidden trump, she stiffened slightly. 

"I haven't asked you to commit yourself. I've got a right to my ownprivacy. "

There fell a small pause. Lounging, an elbow on the table, a cigarettefuming idly between his fingers, the man favoured her with a steadylook of speculation whose challenge was modified only by theinextinguishable humour smouldering in his eyes--a look that Sally metsquarely, dissembling her excitement. For with all her fears andperplexity she could never quite forget that, whatever its sequel, this was verily an adventure after her own heart, that she was lookingher best in a wonderful frock and pitting her wits against those of anengaging rogue, that she who had twelve hours ago thought herselfbetter dead was now living intensely an hour of vital emergency. 

"But, " the man said suddenly, and yet deliberately, "surely youwon't dispute my right to know who makes free with my own home?"

Her bravado was extinguished as suddenly as a candle-flame in a gustof wind. 

"_Your_ home?" she parroted witlessly. 

"Mine, yes. If you can forgive me. " He fumbled for his card-case. "Ithas been amusing to play the part you assigned me of amateurcracksman, but really, I'm afraid, it can't be done without a bettermake-up. "

He produced and placed before her on the cloth a small white card; andas soon as its neat black script ceased to writhe and run togetherbeneath her gaze she comprehended the name of _Mr. Walter ArdenSavage_, with a residence address identical with that of the housewherein her great adventure had begun. 

"You!" she breathed aghast, "you're not _really_ Mr. Savage?"

He smiled indulgently. "I rather think I am. "

"But--"

Sally's voice failed her entirely, and he laughed a tolerant littlelaugh as he bent forward to explain. 

"I don't wonder you are surprised--or at your mistake. The fact is, the circumstances are peculiar. It's my sister's fault, really; she'ssuch a flighty little thing--unpardonably careless. I must have warnedher a hundred times, if once, never to leave valuables in thatsilly old tin safe. But she won't listen to reason--never would. Andit's her house--her safe. I've got no right to install a better one. And that is why we're here. "

He smiled thoughtfully down his nose. "It's really a chapter ofaccidents to which I'm indebted for this charming adventure, " hepursued with a suavely personal nod, "beginning with the blow-out ofthe taxicab tire that made us five minutes late for this evening'sboat. We were bound up the Sound, you understand, to spend a fortnightwith a maternal aunt. And our luggage is well on its way there now. Sowhen we missed the boat there was nothing for it but go by train. Wetaxied back here through that abominable storm, booked for Boston bythe eleven ten, and ducked across the way to dine at the Biltmore. Nogood going home, of course, with the servants out--and everything. Andjust as we were finishing dinner this amiable sister of mine gave awhoop and let it out that she'd forgotten her jewels. Well, there wasplenty of time. I put her aboard the train as soon as the sleeperswere open--ten o'clock, you know--and trotted back home to fetch theloot. "

A reminiscent chuckle punctuated his account, but struck no echo fromSally's humour. Moveless and mute, the girl sat unconsciouslyclutching the edge of the table as if it were the one stable fact inher whirling world; all her bravado dissipating as her daze ofwonder yielded successively to doubt, suspicion, consternation. 

"I said there was plenty of time, and so there was, barring accidents. But the same wouldn't be barred. I manufactured the first delay formyself, forgetting to ask Adele for the combination. I knew where tofind it, in a little book locked up in the desk; but I hadn't a key tothe desk, so felt obliged to break it open, and managed that sofamously I was beginning to fancy myself a bit as a Raffles when, allof a sudden--_Pow!_" he laughed--"that fat devil landed on my devotedneck with all the force and fury of two hundredweight of professionaljealousy!

"And then, " he added, "in you walked from God knows where--"

His eyes affixed a point of interrogation to the simple declarative. 

She started nervously in response, divided between impulses which shehad no longer sufficient wit to weigh. Should she confess, or try tolie out of it?

Must she believe this glibly simple and adequate account or reject iton grounds of pardonable skepticism?

If this man were what he professed to be, surely he must recognise herborrowed plumage as his sister's property. True, that did not ofnecessity follow; men have so little understanding of women'sclothing; it pleases them or it displeases, if thrust upon theirattention, but once withdrawn it is forgotten utterly. Such might wellbe the case in this present instance; the man gave Sally, indeed, every reason to believe him as much bewildered and mystified by her asshe was by him. 

On the other hand, and even so . . . 

The infatuate impulse prevailed, to confess and take the consequences. 

"I'm afraid--" she began in a quaver. 

"No need to be--none I know of, at least, " he volunteered promptly, ifwithout moderating his exacting stare. 

"You don't understand--"

She hesitated, sighed, plunged in desperation. "It's no use; there'snothing for me to do but own up. What you were not to-night, Mr. Savage, I was. "

"Sounds like a riddle to me. What is the answer?"

"You were just make-believe. I was the real thing--a real thief. No, let me go on; it's easier if you don't interrupt. Yes, I'll tell youmy name, but it won't mean anything. I'm nobody. I'm Sarah Manvers. I'm a shop-girl out of work. "

"Still I don't see . . . "

"I'm coming to that. I live on your block--the Lexington Avenueend, of course--with two other girls. And this afternoon--the studiowas so hot and stuffy and lonesome, with both my friends away--I wentup on the roof for better air, and fell asleep there and got caught bythe storm. Somebody had closed the scuttle, and I ran across roofslooking for another that wasn't fastened down, and when I foundone--it was your house--I was so frightened by the lightning I hardlyknew what I was doing. I just tumbled in--"

"And welcome, I'm sure, " Blue Serge interpolated. 

She blundered on, unheeding: "I went all through the house, but therewasn't anybody, and--I was so wet and miserable that I--made myselfat home--decided to take a bath and--and borrow some things to wearuntil my own were dry. And then I thought . . . "

She halted, confused, realising how impossible it would be to convinceanybody with the tale of her intention merely to borrow the clothingfor a single night of arabesque adventure, finding it difficult now tobelieve in on her own part, and hurried breathlessly on to cover thehiatus. 

"And then I heard a noise on the roof. I had closed the scuttle, but Iwas frightened. And I crept down-stairs and--saw the light in thelibrary and . . . That's all. " And when he didn't reply promptly, she added with a trace of challenge: "So now you know!"

He started as from deep reverie. 

"But why call yourself a thief--for that?"

"Because . . . Because . . . " Overstrung nerves betrayed her in gustyconfession. "Because it's no good blinking facts: that's what I was inmy heart of hearts. Oh, it's all very well for you to be generous, andfor me to pretend I meant only to borrow, and--and all that! But thetruth is, I did steal--and I never honestly meant to send the thingsback. At first--yes; then I meant to return them, but never once theywere on my back. I told myself I did, I believed I did; but deep down, all along, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't! I'm a liar as well as athief. "

"Oh, come now!" Blue Serge interjected in a tone of mild remonstrance, lounging back and eying the girl intently. "Don't be so down onyourself. "

"Well, everything I've said was true except that one word 'borrow';but that in itself was a lie big enough to eclipse every word oftruth. . . . But you'll never understand--never! Men can't. Theysimply can't know what it is to be clothes-hungry--starving forsomething fit to wear--as I have been for years and years and years, as most of us in the shops are all our lives long. "

"Perhaps _I_ understand, though, " he argued with an odd look. "Iknow what you mean, at any rate, even if I'm not ready to admit thatshop-girls are the only people who ever know what it is to desire theunattainable. Other people want things, at times, just as hard as youdo clothes. "

"Well, but . . . " She stammered, unable to refute this reasonablecontention, but, womanlike, persistent to try: "It's different--whenyou've never had anything. Try to think what it must be to work fromeight till six--sometimes later--six days a week, for just enough tokeep alive on, if you call such an existence being alive! Why, in tenyears I haven't seen the country or the sea--unless you count trips toConey on crowded trolley-cars, and mighty few of them. I never couldafford a vacation, though I've been idle often enough--never earnedmore than ten dollars a week, and that not for many weeks together. I've lived on as little as five--on as little as charity, on nothingbut the goodness of my friends at times. That's why, when I saw myselfprettily dressed for once, and thought nothing could stop my gettingaway, I couldn't resist the temptation. I didn't know where I wasgoing, dressed like this, and not a cent; but I was going some place, and I wasn't ever coming back!"

"Good Lord!" the man said gently. "Who'd blame you?"

"Don't sympathise with me, " she protested, humanly quite unconsciousof her inconsistency. "I don't deserve it. I'm caught with the goodson, literally, figuratively, and I've got to pay the penalty. Oh, Idon't mean what you mean. I'm no such idiot as to think you'll have mesent to jail; you've been too kind already and--and, after all, I diddo you a considerable service, I did help you out of a prettydangerous fix. But the penalty I'll pay is worse than jail: it'sgiving up these pretty things and all my silly, sinful dreams, andgoing back to that scrubby studio--and no job--"

She pulled up short, mystified by a sudden change in the man'sexpression, perceiving that she was no longer holding his attention ascompletely as she had. She remarked his look of embarrassment, thathis eyes winced from something descried beyond and unknown to her. Buthe was as ready as ever to recover and demonstrate that, if hisattention had wandered, he hadn't missed the substance of herharangue; for when she paused he replied:

"Oh, perhaps not. Don't let's jump at conclusions. I've a premonitionyou won't have to go back. Here comes some one who'll have a word tosay about that--or I don't know!"

And he was up before Sally had grasped his meaning--on his feet andbowing civilly, if with a twinkling countenance, to a woman whoswooped down upon him in a sudden, wild flutter of words andgestures:

"Walter! Thank God I've found you! I've been so upset--hardly knewwhat to do--when you didn't show up. . . . "

What more she might have said dried instantly on the newcomer's lipsas her gaze embraced Sally. She stiffened slightly and drew back, elevating her eyebrows to the frost-line. 

"Who is this woman? What does this mean?" Without awaiting an answerto either question, she observed in accents that had all the chillingforce and cutting edge of a winter wind:

"_My_ dress! _My_ hat!"

CHAPTER V

CONSPIRACY

"My dear sister!" interposed Mr. Savage with an imitation so exact ofthe woman's tone that he nearly wrung a smile even from Sally. "Docalm yourself--don't make a scene. The matter is quite easy toexplain--"

"But what--"

"Oh, give us a chance. But permit me!" He bowed with his easy laugh. "Adele, this is Miss Manvers--Miss Manvers, my sister Mrs. Standish. And now"--as Sally half started from her chair and Mrs. Standishacknowledged her existence by an embittered nod--"do sit down, Adele!"

With the manner of one whose amazement has paralysed her parts ofspeech, the woman sank mechanically into the chair which Savage(having thoughtfully waved away the hovering waiter) placed beside thetable, between himself and his guest. But once seated, precisely as ifthat position were a charm to break the spell that sealed them, promptly her lips reformed the opening syllables of "_What does thismean?_"

Mr. Savage, however, diplomatically gave her no chance to utter morethan the first word. 

"Do hold your tongue, " he pleaded with a rudeness convincinglyfraternal, "and listen to me. I am deeply indebted to MissManvers--for my very life, in fact. Oh, don't look so blamedincredulous; I'm perfectly sober. Now _will_ you please give me ashow?"

And, the lady executing a gesture that matched well her look of blankresignation, her brother addressed himself to a terse summing up ofthe affair which, while it stressed the gravity of the adventure withthe fat burglar, did not seem to extenuate Sally's offence in theleast and so had the agreeable upshot of leaving the sister in amuch-placated humour and regarding the girl with a far more indulgentcountenance than Sally had found any reason at first to hope for. 

As for that young woman, the circumstance that she was inwardly alla-shudder didn't in the least hinder her exercise of that femininetrick of mentally photographing, classifying, and cataloguing theother woman's outward aspects in detail and, at the same time, distilling her more subtle phases of personality in the retort ofinstinct and minutely analysing the precipitate. 

The result laid the last lingering ghost of suspicion that all was notas it should be between these two, that Blue Serge had not beenaltogether frank with her. 

She had from the first appreciated the positive likeness between Mrs. Standish and the portrait in the library, even though her observationof the latter had been limited to the most casual inspection throughthe crack of the folding doors; there wasn't any excuse forquestioning the identification. The woman before her, like the womanof the picture, was of the slender, blonde class--intelligent, neurotic, quick-tempered, inclined to suffer spasmodically fromexaltation of the ego. And if she had not always been pampered withevery luxury that money has induced modern civilisation to invent, thefact was not apparent; she dressed with such exquisite taste as onlymoney can purchase, if it be not innate; she carried herself with theease of affluence founded upon a rock, while her nervousness wasmanifestly due rather to impatience than to the vice of worrying. 

"And now, " Mr. Savage wound up with a graceless grin, "if you'll begood enough to explain what the dickens you're doing here instead ofbeing on the way to Boston by the eleven-ten, I'll be grateful; MissManvers will quit doubting my veracity--secretly, if not openly; andwe can proceed to consider something I have to suggest withrespect to the obligations of a woman who has been saved the loss of aworld of gewgaws as well as those of a man who is alive and wholeexclusively, thanks to . . . Well, I think you know what I mean. "

"Oh, as for that, " said Mrs. Standish absently, "when you turned upmissing on the train I stopped it at the Hundred and Twenty-FifthStreet station and came back to find out what was the matter. I'vebeen all through this blessed place looking for you--"

"Pardon!" Mr. Savage interrupted. "Did I understand you to say you hadstopped the train?"

"Certainly. Why not? You don't imagine I was going to let myself becarried all the way to Boston in ignorance--"

"Then, one infers, the eleven-ten doesn't normally stop at One Hundredand Twenty-Fifth Street?"

"No. I had to speak to the conductor. Do be quiet. It doesn't matter. What were you going to say?"

"Nothing much, except that the clothes Miss Manvers stands in arehardly to be considered an adequate reward. "

"True. But you mentioned some suggestion or other--"

"Without being downright about it, thereby sparing Miss Manversany embarrassment, she might feel should you disapprove, as I'mconfident you won't--"

This was the woman's turn; she silenced him with a gesture of infiniteennui. "Why is it, " she complained, "that you _never_ get anywherewithout talking all around Robin Hood's barn?"

"Objection, " Mr. Savage offered promptly, "on the ground of mixedmetaphor. "

"Objection sustained, " his sister conceded. "But do come to thepoint. "

"I wish only to remind you of the news imparted by our respected auntin her letter of recent date. "

The woman frowned slightly, as with mental effort; then a flash ofcomprehension lightened her blue eyes. Immediately her brows mutelycircumflexed a question. A look of profound but illegible significancepassed between the two. Mr. Savage nodded. Mrs. Standish pursedspeculatively her thin, well-made-up lips and visibly took thought, according to the habit of her sex, by means of a series of intuitiveexplosions. Then she nodded vigorously and turned upon Miss Manvers abewildering smile, for the first time addressing her directly. 

"My dear, " she said pleasantly enough--though, of course, the term hadno accent whatever of affection--"this half-witted brother ofmine once in a while stumbles upon the most brilliant inspirationimaginable. I'm sure he has seen enough of you in this last hour to bemaking no mistake in offering you as one answer to a very delicatequestion which has been distressing us both for a long time. If you'renot overscrupulous . . . "

She paused with a receptive air. 

"I'm sure I don't know what you're driving at, " Sally said bluntly;"but I'm hardly in a position to be nice-minded about trifles. "

"It's this way, " Savage interposed; "we're offering you a chance toget away, to enjoy a summer by the seashore, to mix with a lot ofmighty interesting people, and all that sort of thing--everything youtell me you've been pining for--if you'll consent to sail under falsecolours. "

"Please!" Sally begged with a confused and excited little laugh. 

"He simply can't help it; indirection is Walter's long suit, " Mrs. Standish took up the tale. "First of all, you must know this aunt ofours is rather an eccentric--frightfully well off, spoiled, self-willed, and quite blind to her best interests. She's been a widowso long she doesn't know the meaning of wholesome restraint. She's gotall the high knee-action of a thoroughbred never properly broken toharness. She sets her own pace--and Heaven help the hindermost!All in all, I think Aunt Abby's the most devil-may-care person I'veever met. "

"You're too modest, " Mr. Savage commented abstractedly. 

"Be quiet, Walter. Aunt Abby's passionately fond of two things--cardsand what she calls 'interesting people. ' Neither would matter much butfor the other. She gambles for sheer love of it, and doesn't care arap whether she wins or loses. And her notion of an interesting personis anybody fortunate or misfortunate enough to be noticed by thenewspapers. A bit of a scandal is sure bait for her regard . . . "

Pausing, Mrs. Standish smiled coolly. "Take me, for example. Until Ifound it necessary to get unmarried, my aunt never could find time towaste on me. But now, in spite of the fact that the decree was in myfavour, I'm the object of her mad attachment. And if Walter hadn'tcome into the limelight through a Senatorial inquiry into highfinance, and made such a sick witness, and got so deservedly roastedby the newspapers--well, nothing is now too good for him. So, you see, the people Aunt Abby insists on entertaining are apt to be a ratherdubious lot. I don't mean she'd pick up with anybody openly immoral, you know; but she certainly manages to fill her houses--she's gotseveral--with a wild crew of adventurers and--esses--to call 'emby their first names. 

"They're smart enough, God knows, and they do make things hum, butthey charge her--some of them--fat fees for the privilege ofentertaining them. Funny things have happened at her card tables. SoWalter and I have been scheming to find some way to protect herwithout rousing her resentment by seeming to interfere. If we couldonly get evidence enough to talk privately to some of herfriends--about time-tables, for instance--it would be all right. Andonly recently she herself showed us the way--wrote me that she hadquarrelled with her corresponding secretary, a spinster of acidmaturity, and discharged her; and would we please look round forsomebody to replace Miss. Matring. Do you see?"

"You mean, " Sally faltered, dumfounded--"you can't mean you'llrecommend _me_ for the position?"

"I'll do more. I'll see that you get it; I'll take you with meto-night, and by to-morrow noon you'll be engaged. But you mustunderstand we're giving you the chance solely that you may serve us aswell as Aunt Abby, by keeping your eyes and ears wide open andreporting to us in strictest confidence and secrecy anything thatdoesn't look right to you. "

"But--but I--but how--why do you think you can trust me?" thegirl stammered. "Knowing what you do--"

"That's just the point. Don't you see'? We can trust you because youwon't dare betray us. "

"But--but after I've stolen--"

"Don't say it!" Savage cut in. "You stole nothing, if you please; youmerely anticipated a reward for a service not yet rendered. "

"But . . . Oh, it's kind of you, but don't you see it's impossible?"

"Nothing is impossible except your refusal, " said Mrs. Standish. "Dobe sensible, my dear, and realise that we--that I intend you shallhave this chance. What can you possibly find to object to? The deceit?Surely an innocent deception, practised upon a dear old lady for herown good!"

"Deceit, " Mr. Savage propounded very sagely, "is like any other sin, it's only sinful when it is. That's elementary sophistry, but Iinvented it, and I'm strong for it. Besides, we've got just twentyminutes now to get aboard the Owl--and I've got to beg, borrow, or buytransportation on it, because there wasn't a room left but the two Ibought for you and me--and now Adele will have to have one of therooms--"

"But I've nothing to wear but these things!" "Don't worry about that, "Mrs. Standish reassured her. "I've got nine trunks on the way--andyou unquestionably fill my things out like another perfectfigure. "

"But how will you explain? Who am I to be?You can't introduce me as a shop-girl out of work whom you caughtstealing your clothes. "

"_La nuit porte conseil_, " Mr. Savage announced sagely, and with whatwas no doubt an excellent accent. "Let Adele sleep on it, and if shedoesn't come through in the morning with a good, old-fashioned, allwool, yard-wide lie that will blanket every possible contingency, Idon't know my little sister. "

"An elder brother, let me tell you, Miss Manvers, is the best possiblepreceptor in prevarication. "

"Elder!" exclaimed the outraged young man. "Well, of all--" He turnedappealingly to Sally. "_What_ did I tell you?"

CHAPTER VI

ALIAS MANWARING

Fickle-minded fortune favoured Mr. Savage's belated application foradditional sleeping-car accommodation: somebody turned back areservation only ten minutes or so before train-time, in consequenceof which Mrs. Standish and Miss Manvers enjoyed adjoining compartmentsof luxury, while Mr. Savage contented himself with less pretentiousquarters farther aft. 

Thus it was that at one minute past one o'clock, when apreternaturally self-respecting porter dispassionately ascertainedthat nothing more would be required of him till morning and shuthimself out of her presence, the girl subsided upon the edge of a bedof such sybaritic character as amply to warrant the designation _deluxe_, and, flushed and trembling with excitement (now that she daredonce again to be her natural self) and with all incredulityappropriate to the circumstances, stared at the young woman whoblankly stared back from a long mirror framed in the door. 

It was truly a bit difficult to identify that modishly dressed andbrilliantly animated young person with S. Manvers of the HardwareNotions in Huckster's Bargain Basement, while reason tottered andcommon sense tittered when invited to credit the chain of accidentsresponsible for the transformation. 

Strange world of magic romance, this, into which she had stumbled overthe threshold of a venial misdemeanour! Who now would dare contendthat life was ever sordid, grim, and cruel, indigestible from soup tosavoury? Who would have the hardihood to uphold such contention whenmade acquainted with the case of Sarah Manvers, yesterday's drudge, unlovely and unloved, to-day's child of fortune, chosen of a goldendestiny?

Sally's jubilation was shadowed by a pensive moment; dare she assumethat the winters of her discontent had been forever banished by onewave of Chance's wand?

She shook a confounded head, smiled an uncertain smile, sighed alittle, broken sigh, and with determination bade adieu to misgivings, turning a deaf ear to the dull growls of mother-wit arguing that theBoard of Health ought to be advised about the State of Denmark. Sufficient unto the night its room de luxe; she found her couch noless comfortable for the sword that conceivably swayed above it, suspended by a thread of casual favour. 

For a time she rested serenely in the dark--only half undressed inview of the ever-possible accident--cheek to pillow, face turned tothe window that endlessly screened the sweeping mysteries of that darkglimmering countryside, quite resigned so to while away the night, persuaded it was inevitable that one with so much to ponder should beunable to sleep a wink. 

Deliberately, to prove this point, she closed her eyes. . . . 

And immediately opened them to broad daylight, revealing, through thatmagic casement, the outskirts of a considerable city, street aftersuburban street wheeling away like spokes from a restless hub. 

A simultaneous pounding on the door warned her she had but ten minutesin which to dress; no time to grasp the substance of a dream cometrue, no time even to prepare a confident attitude with which tosalute the fairy godparents of her social debut--time only tostruggle into her outer garments and muster a half-timid, deprecatorysmile for those whom she was to find awaiting her in the corridor, impatient to be off, none too amiably conscious of foregone beautysleep, accepting their protegee with a matter-of-course manner almostdisillusioning. 

"Got to hurry, you know, " Savage informed her brusquely; "onlytwenty minutes to snatch a bite before our train leaves for theIsland. "

They hurried down a platform thronged with fellow passengers similarlyhaunted by the seven devils of haste, beneath a high glazed but opaquevault penning an unappetizing atmosphere composed in equal parts of astagnant warm air and stale steam, into a restaurant that had patentlybeen up all night, through the motions of swallowing alternatemouthfuls of denatured coffee and dejected rolls, up again and out anddown another platform--at last into the hot and dusty haven of aparlour-car. 

Then impressions found time for readjustment. The journey promised, and turned out, to be by no means one of unalloyed delights. The earlymorning temper discovered by Mrs. Standish offered chill comfort toone like Sally, saturate with all the emotions of a stray puppyhankering for a friendly pat. Ensconced in the chair beside hercharge, the patroness swung it coolly aside until little of her wasvisible but the salient curve of a pastel-tinted cheek and buried hernose in a best-selling novel, ignoring overtures analogous to thewagging of a propitiatory tail. While Savage, in the chair beyond hissister, betrayed every evidence of being heartily grateful for adistance that precluded conversation and to a Providence thattolerated _Town Topics_. Sally was left to improve her mind witha copy of _Vanity Fair_, from contemplation of whose text and picturesshe emerged an amateur adventuress sadly wanting in the indispensablequality of assurance. It wasn't that she feared to measure wits, intelligence, or even lineage with the elect. But in how manymysterious ways might she not fall short of the ideal of Good Form?

What--she pondered gloomily, chin in hand, eyes vacantly reviewing acountryside of notable charms adrowse in the lethargic peace of amid-summer morning--what the dickens was Good Form, anyway?

Nothing, not even her own normally keen power of observation, offeredany real enlightenment. 

She summed up an hour's studious reflection in the dubious conclusionthat Good Form had something subtly to do with being able to sitcross-kneed and look arrogantly into the impertinent lens of acamp-follower's camera--to be impudently self-conscious, that is--topose and pose and get away with it. 

The train came to a definite stop, and Sally startled up to find Mrs. Standish, afoot, smiling down at her with all her pretty featuresexcept her eyes, and Mr. Savage smiling in precisely the reversefashion. 

"All out, " he announced. "Change here for the boat. Anotherhour, and--as somebody says Henry James says--there, in a manner ofspeaking, we all are. "

They straggled across a wharf to a fussy small steamer, Mrs. Standishleading the way with an apprehensive eye for possible acquaintancesand, once established with her brother and Sally in a secluded cornerof the boat's upper deck, uttering her relief in a candid sigh. 

"Nobody we know aboard, " she added, smiling less tensely at Sally. 

"Eh--what say'?" Mr. Savage inquired from a phase of hypnosis inducedby a glimpse of Good Form in a tailored skirt of white corduroy. 

"Nobody of any consequence in this mob, " his sister paraphrased, yawning delicately. 

"Oh, " he responded with an accent of doubt. But the white corduroyvanished round a shoulder of the deck-house, and he bestirred himselfto pay a little attention to Sally. 

"There's the Island, " he said, languidly waving a hand. "Thatwhite-pillared place there among the trees--left of thelighthouse--that's Aunt Abby's. "

Sally essayed a smile of intelligent response. Not that the Islandfailed to enchant her; seen across a fast diminishing breadth ofwind-darkened blue water, bathed in golden mid-morning light, itsvillas of delicious grey half buried in billows of deliciousgreen, its lawns and terraces crowning fluted grey-stone cliffs fromwhose feet a broad beach shelved gently into the sea, it seemed morebeautiful to Miss Manvers than anything she had ever dreamed of. 

But what was to be her reception there, what her status, what herfortunes?

"I've been thinking, " Mrs. Standish announced when a sidelong glancehad reassured her as to their practical privacy, "about Miss Manvers. "

"I hope to Heaven you've doped out a good one, " Savage interruptedfervently. "In the cold grey dawn it doesn't look so good to me. Butthen I'm only a duffer. Perhaps it's just as well; if I'd been a goodliar I might have married to keep my hand in. As it is, I never forgetto give thanks, in my evening prayers, for my talented little sister. "

"Are you finished?" Mrs. Standish inquired frigidly. 

"I'd better be. "

"Then, please pay close attention, Miss Manvers. To begin with, I'mgoing to change your name. From now on it's Sara Manwaring--Sarawithout the _h_. "

"Manwaring with the _w_ silent, as in wrapper and wretch?" Savageasked politely. 

For Sally's benefit Mrs. Standish spelled the word patiently. 

"And the record of the fair impostor?" Savage prompted. 

"That's very simple. Miss Manwaring came to me yesterday with a letterof introduction from Edna English. Edna sailed for Italy lastSaturday, and by the time she's back Aunt Abby will have forgotten toquestion Miss Manwaring's credentials. "

"What did I tell you?" Mr. Savage wagged a solemn head at Sally. "There's Art for you!"

"She comes from a family prominent socially in"--Mrs. Standish pauseda fraction of a second--"Massillon, Ohio--"

"Is there any such place?"

"Of course--"

"What a lot you do know, Adele!"

"But through a series of unhappy accidents involving the familyfortunes was obliged to earn her own living. "

"Is that all?"

"Isn't it enough?"

"Plenty. Simple, succinct, stupendous! It has only one flaw. "

"And that, if you please?" Mrs. Standish demanded, bristling a trifle. 

"It ain't possible for anyone to be prominent socially in a placenamed Massillon, Ohio. It can't be done--not in a place I never heardof before. "

"Do you understand, Miss Manwaring?" the woman asked, turning animpatient shoulder to her brother. 

"Perfectly, " Sally assented eagerly; "only--who is Edna English?"

"Mrs. Cornwallis English. You must have heard of her. "

"Oh, yes, in the newspapers . . . "

"Social uplift's her fad. She's done a lot of work amongdepartment-store girls. "

"To their infinite annoyance, " interpolated Savage. 

"At all events, that's how she came to notice you. "

"I see, " said Sally humbly. 

"You may fill in the outlines at your discretion, " Mrs. Standishpursued sweetly. "That's all I know about you. You called at the housewith the letter from Mrs. English yesterday afternoon, and I took afancy to you and, knowing that Aunt Abby needed a secretary, broughtyou along. "

"Thank you, " said Sally. "I hope you understand how grate--"

"That's quite understood. Let us say no more about it. "

"Considerable story, " Savage approved. "But what became of the letterof introduction?"

"I mislaid it, " his sister explained complacently. "Don't I mislayeverything?"

For once the young man was dumb with admiration. But his look waseloquent. 

Deep thought held the amateur adventuress spellbound for some minutes. "There's only one thing, " she said suddenly, with a puzzled frown. 

"And that?" Mrs. Standish prompted. 

"What about the burglary? Your servants, when they came home lastnight, must have noticed and notified the police. "

"Oh, I say!" Savage exclaimed blankly. 

"Don't let's worry about that, " Mrs. Standish interrupted. "We caneasily let it be understood that what was stolen was later recoveredfrom--whatever they call the places where thieves dispose of theirstealings. "

"That covers everything, " Savage insisted impatiently. "Do come along. There's the car waiting. "

Coincident with this announcement a series of slight jars shook thesteamer, and with surprise Sally discovered that, without herknowledge in the preoccupation of being fitted with a completely newidentity, the vessel had rounded a wooded headland, opening up a deepharbour dotted with pleasure craft, and was already nuzzling the townwharf of a sizable community. 

She rose and followed her fellow conspirators aft and below to thegangway, her mind registering fresh impressions with therapidity of a cinema film. 

The grey cliff had given place to green-clad bluffs sown thick withcottages of all sorts, from the quaintly hideous and the obviouslyinexpensive to the bewitchingly pretty and the pretentiously ornate--a haphazard arrangement that ran suddenly into a plot of streetslinking a clutter of utilitarian buildings, all converging upon thefocal point of the village wharf. 

Upon this last a cloud of natives and summer folk swarmed and buzzed. At its head a cluster of vehicles, horse-drawn as well asmotor-driven, waited. In the shadow beneath it, and upon the crescentbeach that glistened on its either side, a multitude of children, young and old, paddled and splashed in shallows and the wash of thesteamer. 

Obviously the less decorative and exclusive side of the island, it wasnone the less enchanting in Sally's vision. A measure of confidencereinfused her mood. She surrendered absolutely to fatalistic enjoymentof the gifts the gods had sent. Half closing her eyes, she drank deepof salt-sweet air vibrant with the living warmth of a perfect day. 

A man whose common face was as impassive as a mask shouldered throughthe mob and burdened himself with the hand-luggage of the party. Sallygathered that he was valet to Mr. Savage. And they were pushingthrough the gantlet of several hundred curious eyes and makingtoward the head of the pier. 

"Trying, " Mrs. Standish observed in an aside to the girl. "I alwayssay that everything about the Island is charming but the gettinghere. "

Sally murmured an inarticulate response and wondered. Disdain of thecommonalty was implicit in that speech; it was contact with the herd, subjection to its stares, that Mrs. Standish found so trying. How, then, had she brought herself so readily to accept association onalmost equal terms with a shop-girl misdemeanant--out of gratitude, orsheer goodness of heart, or something less superficial?

The shadow of an intimation that something was wrong again camebetween Sally and the sun, but passed as swiftly as a wind-sped cloud. 

The valet led to a heavy, seven-seated touring-car, put their luggagein the rear, shut the door on the three, and swung up to the seatbeside the chauffeur. The machine threaded a cautious way out of therank, moved sedately up a somnolent street, turned a corner andpricked up its heels to the tune of a long, silken snore, flingingover its shoulder two miles of white, well-metalled roadway with noappreciable effort whatever. 

For a moment or two dwellings swept by like so many telegraph-polespast a car-window. Then they became more widely spaced, and weresucceeded by a blurred and incoherent expanse of woods, fields, parks, hedges, glimpses of lawns surfaced like a billiard-table, flashes of white facades maculated with cool blue shadows. 

Then, without warning if without a jar, the car slowed down to a safeand sane pace and swung off between two cobblestone pillars into awell-kept wilderness of trees that stood as a wall of privacy betweenthe highroad and an exquisitely parked estate bordering the cliffs. 

Debouching into the open, the drive swept a gracious curve round awonderful wide lawn of living velvet and through the pillaredporte-cochere of a long, white-walled building with many gailyawninged windows in its two wide-spread wings. 

Sentinelled by sombre cypresses, relieved against a sapphire skybending to a sea of scarcely deeper shade, basking in soft, clearsunlight, the house seemed to hug the earth very intimately, to belongmost indispensably, with an effect of permanence, of orderliness anddignity that brought to mind instinctively the term estate, and causedSally to recall (with misspent charity) the fulsome frenzy of asycophantic scribbler ranting of feudal aristocracies, representativehouses, and encroaching tenantry. 

The solitary symptom of a tenantry in evidence here was a perfectlygood American citizen in shirt-sleeves and overalls, pipe inmouth, toleration in his mien, calmly steering a wheelbarrow down thedrive. Sally caught the glint of his cool eyes and experienced a flashof intuition into a soul steeped in contemplative indulgence of thecity crowd and its silly antics. And forthwith, for some reason shefound no time to analyse, she felt more at home, less apprehensive. 

As the car pulled up beneath the porte-cochere a mild-eyed footman ranout to help the valet with the luggage; Savage skipped blithely downand gave a hand to his sister, offering like assistance to Sally inturn; and on the topmost of three broad, white, stone steps thechatelaine of Gosnold House appeared to welcome her guests--a vastlydifferent personality, of course, from any in Sally's somewhatincoherent anticipations. 

Going upon the rather sketchy suggestions of Mrs. Standish, the girlhad prefigured Aunt Abby as a skittish female of three-score years andodd; a gabbling creature with a wealth of empty gesticulation and aparrot's vacant eye; semi-irresponsible, prone to bright colours andan overyouthful style of dress. 

She found, to the contrary, a lady of quiet reserve, composed ofmanner, authoritative of speech, not lacking in humour, of impeccabletaste in dress, and to all appearances not a day older thanforty-five, despite hair like snow that framed a face of richbut indisputably native complexion. 

In her regard, when it was accorded exclusively to Sally, the girldivined a mildly diverted question, quite reasonable, as to her choiceof travelling costume. Otherwise her reception was cordial, withreservations; nothing warranted the assumption that Mrs. Gosnold (AuntAbby by her legitimate title) was not disposed to make up her mindabout Miss Manwaring at her complete leisure. Interim she was veryglad to see her; any friend of Adele's was always welcome to GosnoldHouse; and would Miss Manwaring be pleased to feel very much at home. 

At this point Mrs. Standish affectionately linked arms with herrelation and, with the nonchalant rudeness that was in those daysalmost a badge of caste, dragged her off to a cool and dusky corner ofthe panelled reception-hall to acquaint her with the adulterated factsresponsible for the phenomenon of Miss Manwaring. 

"Be easy, " Mr. Savage comforted the girl airily; "trust Adele to getaway with it. That young woman is sure of a crown and harp in thehereafter if only because she'll make St. Peter himself believe blackis white. You've got nothing to worry about. Now I'm off for a bathand nap; just time before luncheon. See you then. So-long. "

He blew a most débonnaire kiss to his maternal aunt and trottedlightly up the broad staircase; and as Sally cast about for some placeto wait inconspicuously on the pleasure of her betters, Mrs. Gosnoldcalled her. 

"Oh, Miss Manwaring!"

The girl responded with an unaffected diffidence apparently pleasingin the eyes of her prospective employer. 

"My niece has been telling me about you, " she said with an engagingsmile; "and I am already inclined to be grateful to her. It isn'toften--truth to tell--she makes such prompt acknowledgment of mydemands. And I'm a most disorderly person, so I miss very much theservices of my former secretary. Do come nearer. "

Sally drew within arm's-length, and the elder woman put out a hand andcaught the girl's in a firm, cool, friendly grasp. 

"Your first name?" she inquired with a look of keen yet not unpleasantscrutiny. 

"Sarah, " said Sarah bluntly. "Man'aring" stuck in her guilty throat. 

"S-a-r-a, " Mrs. Standish punctiliously spelled it out. 

"Thank you; I recognise it now. " A shrewd, sidelong glance flickeredamusement at Mrs. Gosnold's niece. "You come from the middle West, Iunderstand, and you've had rather a hard time of it in New York. What do you do best?" "Why--I've tried to write, " Sally confessedshyly. 

"Oh? Novels?"

"Not quite so ambitious; short stories to begin with and then specialarticles for the newspapers--anything that promised to bring in alittle money, but nothing ever did. "

"Then, I presume, you're familiar with typewriters?"

"Oh, yes. "

"And can punctuate after a fashion?"

"I think so. "

"You don't look it; far too womanly, unless your appearance isdeceptive, to know the true difference between a semicolon and ahyphen. No matter; you have every qualification, it seems, including agood manner and a pleasant smile. You're engaged--on probation; I meanto say, for this one week we'll consider you simply my guest, butwilling to help me out with my correspondence. Then, if you like theplace and I like you as much as I hope I shall, you'll become mypersonal secretary at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week and allexpenses. No--don't thank me; thank your sensible eyes. "

Mrs. Gosnold laughed lightly, gave Sally's hand a final butbarely perceptible pressure, and released it. 

"Now Thomas will show you your room. Mrs. Standish tells me she haspromised to outfit you; her maid will bring you more suitable thingsby the time you've had your tub and some rest. Plenty of time; welunch at one-thirty. "

The girl stammered some sort of an acknowledgment; she was never ableto recall precisely what she said, in truth, but it served. And thenshe was amazedly ascending the broad staircase and following theflunky's back down a long, wide, drafty corridor to a room at oneextreme of the building--a small room, daintily furnished and brightwith summery cretonne, its individual bath adjoining. 

"I'll be sending the maid to you at once, ma'am, " said Thomas, andshut the door. 

Sally wandered to a window, lifted the shade, and looked out withbewildered eyes. 

From the front of the house to the edge of the cliff the grounds wereas severely composed as an Italian formal garden; but to one side, screened by high box hedges, a tennis-court was in the activepossession of four young people, none of them, apparently over twentyyears of age. Their calls and clear laughter rang in the quietness, vibrant with careless joy of living. 

They did not in the least suggest the crew of adventurers whichMrs. Standish had led Sally to expect. 

Thus far, indeed, Sally had failed to detect anything in theatmosphere of the establishment or in the bearing of its mistress tobear out the innuendo that Gosnold House was infested by a parasiticswarm and "Aunt Abby" the dupe of her own unholy passions. Doubtshummed in Sally's head, and she was abruptly surprised to find theview obscured by a mist of her own making--by, in short, nothing lessthan tears. 

The simple kindliness of Mrs. Gosnold's welcome had touched theimpostor more deeply than she had guessed. All this was offered her, this life of semi-idleness and luxury in this spot of poetic beauty, in return for nothing but trifling services. But she was not worthy!

A little gust of anger shook her--anger with her benefactors, thatthey could not have introduced her to this mundane paradise as hersimple self, Miss Manvers--Sarah with the vulgar _h_--by her ownmerits and defects to stand or fall. . . . 

But, as though the fates were weaving the fabric of her destiny lessblindly than is their commonly reputed custom, the young woman'sconscience during those few first hours had little time in which towork upon her better nature. Its first squeamish qualms, when it atlength got Sally alone, were quickly counteracted by a knock ather door and what followed--the entrance of a quiet-mannered maidwhose fresh-coloured countenance loomed like some amiable, mature moonabove a double armful of summery apparel. 

"Mrs. Standish's compliments, ma'am, and I'm bringing your things. There's more to come--as much again I'm to fetch immediate--and therest, Mrs. Standish says, there'll be time enough for after luncheon, when all her trunks is unpacked. "

Carefully depositing her burden upon the bed, she beamedacknowledgment of Sally's breathless thanks and made off briskly, toreturn much too soon to suit one who would have been glad of longergrace in which to become more intimately acquainted with this newdonation of her ravishing good fortune. 

None the less, it didn't need another double armful of beautifulthings to satisfy Sally that, whatever and how many might be thefaults of her benefactress, niggardliness was not of their number. 

"That's all for now, and Mrs. Standish's compliments, and will you beso kind as to stop and see her, when you're dressed, before going downto lunch. It's the last door on the left, just this side the stairs. Will I turn on your bath now?"

"Please don't trouble. I--"

"No trouble at all, ma'am. Indeed, and I'm sure you'll find us allvery happy to do anything we can for you. It'll be a nice changeto be waiting on a pleasant-spoken person like yourself after that"--with a sniff--"Miss Matring. "

"Oh!" Genuine disappointment was responsible for the exclamation. Buta moment's thought persuaded Sally she had been unreasonable to hopeher secret might be kept from the servants. Even if Mrs. Standish hadnot betrayed it to this maid, there had been that flunky, Thomas, inthe reception-hall close at hand during the establishment of Sally'sstatus, with his pose of inhuman detachment of interest--quite tooperfect to be true. 

"Beg pardon, ma'am?"

"Oh, nothing!" Sally swallowed her chagrin bravely. "I mean, thank youvery much, but I'm accustomed to waiting on myself--except when itcomes to hooks up the back--and you must have enough to keep you busywith so many people in the house. "

"Not a great many just now, ma'am--not more'n a dozen, counting inMrs. Standish and her brother and you. This has been an off week, soto speak, but they'll be arriving in plenty to-morrow and Saturday, I'm told. "

That gossip was the woman's failing was a fact as obvious as that herdesire was only to be friendly; brief reflection persuaded Sally thatit was to her own interest neither to snub nor to neglect thisgratuitous source of information. With some guilty conceit, befittingone indulging in all most Machiavellian subtlety, she let fall anextravagantly absent-minded "Yes?" and was rewarded, quite properly, with a garrulous history of her predecessor's career, from which shedisengaged only two profitable impressions: that the staff of servantswas devoted to their mistress, and that it would little advantage asecretary to quarrel with the one in the hope of ingratiating herselfwith the other. 

So she contrived, as soon as might be without giving offence, tointerrupt and dismiss the maid; then steeled her heart against thetemptation to try on everything at once, and profited by long practicein the nice art of bathing, dressing, breakfasting, and trudging twomiles in minimum time--between, that is, the explosion of a matutinalalarm and the last moment when one might, without incurring a fine, register arrival on the clock at Huckster's entrance for employees. She hadn't the slightest notion what Mrs. Standish might want of her, but she was very sure that she didn't mean to invite displeasure byseeming careless of the lady's whims. 

Consequently it was surprisingly soon that she stood, refreshed andcomfortable in white linen, tapping at the door that Emmy, the maid, had designated. 

Another maid, less prepossessing, admitted her to thedressing-room of the woman of fashion; and this last greeted Sallywith a fretful, preoccupied frown, visible in the mirror, whichreflected as well the excellent results obtainable from discreetemployment of a high-keyed palette. 

"Oh, it's you!" said Mrs. Standish shortly. "I was hoping you wouldn'tbe forever. Though you do look well in those duds. I've somethingquite important to say. You may go now, Ellen; I sha'n't want youagain until evening. "

With a scowl Ellen made off, an effort of masterly self-restraintalone enabling her to refrain from slamming the door. 

"A most ridiculous thing has happened, " Mrs. Standish pursued, delicately lining in her devastating eyebrows--"most annoying!" Shejerked an impatient thumb at a telegram that lay open on thedressing-table. "Read that. It was waiting our arrival. "

Sally obeyed with an opening wonder that swiftly gave place to panicconsternation. 

 House entered by burglars last night discovered this morning forced entrance by scuttle extent of loss unknown but desk broken open safe cleaned out dining-room silver gone some clothing dresses missing one of gang evidently woman garments left in bath-room name indelible ink faded but apparently manners or manvers police notified detectives on case advise return please wire instructions-Riggs. 

"Now don't have hysterics!" Mrs. Standish snapped as Sally, with a lowcry of dismay, sank stunned into a chair. "There's nothing for you tofret about--you're all right, here, with me, under my protection. Nobody's going to look for you here; but think how fortunate it was Ihad the wit to change your name. No, it's I who have to worry!"

"But I don't understand, " the girl stammered. "Of course there must besome mistake; you haven't really lost anything--"

"Oh, haven't I? I wish I could believe that. Don't you see what thetelegram says--'safe cleaned out, dining-room silver gone'? Thatsounds suspiciously like a loss to me. Walter didn't 'clean out' thesafe, and of course he didn't touch the silver. On the contrary, he'spositive he shut the safe and fixed the combination before leaving. Asfor the dining-room, he didn't once set foot in it. "

"Then--that burglar must have come back. "

"That's our theory, naturally. Walter was so sure he'd scared the manoff, he simply left the scuttle closed--"

"But he told me he found hammer and nails and fastened it upsecurely!"

"That was just his blague; he was having a good time, pretending to bewhat you took him for--an amateur cracksman; he made up thatstory to fool you. The truth is, he made an uncommonly asinineexhibition, even for Walter--so excited and upset by that fight withthe real burglar, to say nothing of the mystery of your interference, that he didn't stop to make sure he had got hold of the rightjewel-case. As a matter of fact, he hadn't; everything I own of anyreal value was left behind; what Walter brought me was an old casecontaining a lot of trinkets worth little or nothing aside fromsentimental associations. "

"Oh, I am so sorry!"

"I'm sure you are, but that doesn't mend matters. The only thing thatwill is for you to make good here and keep away from New York untilthe whole affair has blown over and, above all, never, under anyconsideration, breathe a word of the truth to a living soul. "

"I'm hardly likely to do that, Mrs. Standish; it wouldn't--"

"But you might. I've got to warn you. Everything depends on secrecy. Suppose some one were to question you, and you thought you had to tellthe truth--a detective, for instance. It's not unlikely that one maycome down here to interview me. Walter is leaving for New York by thefirst boat--in hopes of preventing anything of the sort--but still itisn't impossible. And if it ever comes out that Walter was inthe house last night after dark--well, you can see for yourself whatchance we'll have of making the burglar-insurance people pay us forwhat we've lost!"

CHAPTER VII

FRAUD

At Gosnold House that day, in an airy dining-room from which sunlightwas jealously excluded by Venetian blinds at every long, wide window, creating an oasis of cool twilight in the arid heart of day, tenpersons sat at luncheon--a meal of few and simple courses, butadmirably ordered and served upon a clothless expanse of darkmahogany, relieved at each place by little squares of lace and finelinen, and in the center by a great, brazen bowl of vivid roses. 

In this strange atmosphere the outsider maintained a covertly watchfulsilence (which, if rarely interrupted, was altogether of her ownelection) and was happily guiltless of any positive fault; longproscription to the social hinterland of dingy boarding-houses, smugquick-lunch rooms, and casual studio feeding had not affected her nicefeeling for the sensible thing at table. She possessed, furthermore, in full measure that amazing adaptability which seems to be innatewith most American women of any walk in life; whatever she mightlack to her detriment or embarrassment she was quick to mark, learn, assimilate, and make as much her own as if she had never been withoutit. 

And then--for in spite of reassurances persistently iterated by Mrs. Standish, the news from New York troubled herprofoundly--preoccupation largely counteracted self-consciousnessthrough those first few dreaded moments of Sally's modest socialdebut. 

The men on either side of her she found severally, if quite amiably, agreeable to indulge her reticence. Savage, for one, was secretly, sheguessed, quite as much disconcerted by the reported contretemps intown; but he dissembled well, with a show of whimsical exasperationbecause of this emergency that tore him so soon away from both GosnoldHouse and his other neighbour at table, a Mrs. Artemas--a spirited, mercurial creature, not over-handsome of face, but wonderfully smartin dress and gesture, superbly stayed and well aware of it; a dark, fine woman who recognised the rivalry latent in Sally's dark lookswithout dismay--as Sally conceded she might well. 

On her other hand sat a handsome, well-bred boy of eighteen or so, oneof the tennis four, answering to the name of Bob--evidently a cheerfulsoul, but at ease in the persuasion that comparative children shouldbe seen and so forth. His partner of the courts sat nexthim--name, Babs--a frank-eyed, wholesome girl, perhaps a year hissenior. Their surnames did not transpire, but they impressed Sally, and correctly, as unrelated save in community of unsentimentalinterests. The other players were not present. 

Aside from these, the faces strange to her were those of a Miss Prideand Messrs. Lyttleton and Trego. 

The last-named impressed her as a trifle ill at ease, possibly becauseof the blandishments of Mrs. Artemas, who had openly singled him outto be her special prey, and discovered an attitude of proprietorshipto which he could not be said to respond with the ardour of apassionate, impulsive nature. A youngish man, with a heavy body, a bitungainly in carriage, Mr. Trego had a square-jawed face withheavy-lidded, tranquil eyes. When circumstances demanded, he seemedcapable of expressing himself simply and to the point, with asure-footed if crushing wit. In white flannels his broad-shoulderedbulk dwarfed the other men to insignificance. 

Mr. Lyttleton--assigned to entertain his hostess, and (or Mrs. Gosnoldflattered him) scoring heavily in that office--was as slenderlyelegant and extreme a gallant as one may hope to encounter betweenmagazine covers. He had an indisputable air, a way with him, the eyeof a killer; if he perhaps fancied himself a trace toofervently, something subtle in his bearing toward Mrs. Standishfostered the suspicion that he was almost fearfully sensible of thecharms of that lady. 

Miss Pride, on Mrs. Gosnold's other hand, was a wiry roan virgin whotalked too much but seldom stupidly, exhibited a powerful virtuosityin strange gestures, and pointedly designated herself as a "spin"(diminutive for spinster) apparently deriving from this conceit anamusement esoteric to her audience. Similarly, she indulged amettlesome fancy for referring to her hostess as "dear Abigail. " Herown maiden name was eventually disclosed as Mercedes--pronounced, byrequest, Mar-say-daze. 

From her alone Sally was conscious at the very outset of theiracquaintance of a certain frigidity--as one may who approaches anopen window in the winter unawares. And it was some time before shediscovered that Miss Pride accounted her a rival, thanks to acherished delusion, wholly of independent inspiration, that dearAbigail was a forlorn widow-woman in sore want of some thoroughlyunselfish friend--somebody whose devotion could not possibly bethought mercenary--somebody very much like Mercedes Pride, Spin. 

The table talk was so much concerned with the sensation of the hour, the burglary, that Sally grew quickly indifferent to the topic, andthus was able to appreciate Savage's mental dexterity indiscussing it with apparent candour, but without once verging upon anystatement or admission that might count against the interests of hissister. He seemed wholly unconstrained, but the truth was not in him. Or, if it were, it was in on a life sentence. 

The consensus pronounced Mrs. Standish a very fortunate woman to be sothoroughly protected by insurance, and this the lucky victim indorsedwith outspoken complacence, even to the extent of a semiseriousadmission that she almost hoped the police would fail to recover theplunder. For while many items of the stolen property, of course, werepriceless, things not to be duplicated, things (with a pensive sigh)inexpressibly endeared to one through associations, she couldn't deny(more brightly again) it would be rather a lark to get all that moneyand go shopping to replenish her treasure-chests from the most famousjewellers of the three capitals. 

This aspect of the case made Mrs. Artemas frankly envious. "Howperfectly ripping!" she declared. "I'm almost tempted to hire aburglar of my own!"

"And then, " Lyttleton observed profoundly, "if one isn't in too greata hurry--there's no telling--one may run across the lost things inodd corners and buy them back for a song or so. Anne Warridge did, when they looted her Southampton place, some time ago. Rememberthe year 'motor-car pirates' terrorized Long Island? Well, long aftereverything was settled and the insurance people had paid up, Anneunearthed several of her best pieces in the shops of bogus Parisianantiquaries, and bought them back at bargain rates. "

"It sounds like a sin to me, " Savage commented. 

"But I call you all to witness that, if anything like that happens inthis family, I hereby declare in on the profits. It's worth something, this trip to town--and nobody sorry to see me go!"

After luncheon the party dispersed without formality. Mrs. Artemasvanished bodily, Mrs. Standish in the car with her brother to see himoff; Bob and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and disappearedforthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading overdue correspondence, Trego wassnapped up for auction bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sallybeing elected to fourth place as one whose defective education must bepromptly remedied, lest the roof fall in. 

She found it very pleasant, playing on a breeze-fanned veranda thatoverlooked the terrace and harbour, and proved a tolerably apt pupil. A very little practice evoked helpful memories of whist-lore that shehad thought completely atrophied by long disuse, and she was aidedbesides by a strong infusion in her mentality of that mysteriousfaculty we call card-sense. Before the end of the second rubbershe was playing a game that won the outspoken approval of Trego andMrs. Gosnold, and certainly compared well with Miss Pride's, in spiteof the undying infatuation for auction professed by dear Abigail's onetrue friend. 

It was noteworthy that dear Abigail seemed to have no interests of anycharacter that were not passionately indorsed by her faithfulMercedes. 

Pondering this matter, Sally found time to wonder that Mercedes hadnot been deemed a sufficiently vigilant protector for the poor richwidow; it was her notion that Mercedes missed few bets. 

A circumstance which Sally herself had overlooked turned out to be thetacit understanding on which the game had been made up; and when, atthe conclusion of the third rubber, Mr. Trego summed up the score, then calmly presented her with a twenty-dollar bill and some loosesilver--Mercedes with stoic countenance performing the same painfuloperation on her own purse in favour of dear Abigail--the girl wasovercome with consternation. 

"But--no!" she protested, and blushed. "We weren't playing for money, surely!"

"Of course we were!" Miss Pride snapped, with the more spirit sinceSally's stupidity supplied an unexpected outlet. "I never could seethe amusement in playing cards without a trifling stake--thoughI always do say five cents a point is too much for a friendly game. "

"It's our custom, " Mrs. Gosnold smiled serenely. "You haven'tconscientious scruples about playing for money, I hope?"

"Oh, no; but"--Sally couldn't, simply couldn't confess her pennilesscondition before Miss Pride and Mr. Trego--"but I didn't understand. "

"That's all right, " Trego insisted. "You won it fairly, and it wasn'tall beginners' luck, either. It was good playing; some of yourinferences were as sound as any I ever noticed. "

"It really doesn't seem right, " Sally demurred. 

None the less she could not well refuse the money. 

"I must have my revenge!" Miss Pride announced briskly, thatexpression being sanctioned by convention. "To-night, dear Abigail? Orwould you like another rubber now?"

Mrs. Gosnold shook her head and laughed. "No, thank you; I've hadenough for one afternoon, and I'm sleepy besides. " She thrust back herchair and rose. "If you haven't tried the view from the terrace, MissManwaring, I'm sure you'll find it worth while. And let yourill-gotten gains rest lightly on your conscience; put them in thewar-chest against the rainy day that's sure to dawn for even the bestplayers. I myself play a rather conservative game, you'll find, butthere are times when for days on end I can't seem to get a handmuch better than a yarborough. "

"Do you, " Sally faltered, timidly appreciating the impertinence, "doyou lose very much?"

"I? No fear!" Mrs. Gosnold laughed again. "It amuses me to keep abridge account, and there's seldom a year when it fails to show acredit balance of at least a thousand. "

If Sally's bewilderment was only the deeper for this information, shewas sensible enough to hold her tongue. 

Why need Mrs. Standish deliberately have uttered so monumental afalsehood about the losses of her aunt at cards? She might, of course, be simply and sincerely mistaken, misled by over-solicitude for awell-beloved kinswoman. 

On the other hand, the gesture of Adele Standish was not that of awoman easily deceived. 

Thus the puzzle swung full circle. 

"Mind if I show you the way, Miss Manwaring?"

"Oh, no!" Sally started from her abstraction to find Trego hadlingered, and, smiling, turned to the steps that led down to theterrace. "I'll be very glad . . . "

But the truth was that she was not glad of this unsolicited company;she wanted uninterrupted opportunity to think things over;furthermore, she thought the sheer weight and masculine force ofTrego's personality less ingratiating than another's--Savage's, forinstance, however shallow, was all ways amusing--or Lyttleton's, withhis flashing insouciant smile, his easy grace and utter repose ofmanner. 

But this Mr. Trego, swinging ponderously by her side down the terracewalks, maintaining what was doubtless intended as a civil silence butwhat achieved only oppressiveness, of a sudden inspired a sharpimpression that he would prove a man easy to dislike intensely--thesort of man who is capable of inspiring fear and makes enemies withoutany perceptible difficulty. 

And if that were so--if, as it seemed, she had already, intuitively, acquired a distaste for Mr. Trego--how could she at once retain herself-respect and his money--money which she had won in defiance of therules of fair play?

It stuck in her fist, a hard little wad of silver wrapped in the bill;nearly twenty-one dollars, the equivalent of three weeks' pay fordrudgery, the winnings of an idle hour, the increment of falsepretences. 

"There's your view, " Trego's voice broke upon the reverie. "Prettyfine, isn't it?"

They paused in a corner of the terrace, where a low stone wall, grey, weathered and lichened, fenced the brow of the cliff; and Sally'sglance compassed a panorama of sea and sky and rocky headlands, with little appreciation of its wild, exquisite beauty. 

She uttered an absent-minded "Yes, " hesitated, plunged boldly: "Mr. Trego, I do wish you'd let me give back this money!"

His slowness in replying moved her to seek an answer in his face. Hewas unquestionably sifting his surprise for some excuse for herextraordinary request; a deep gravity informed his heavy-lidded eyesthat were keen with an intelligence far more alert than she hadpreviously credited. 

He said deliberately: "Why?"

"I'd rather not say. " She offered the money in her open hand. "But I'dfeel--well, easier, if you'd take it back. "

He clasped his hands behind him and shook his head. "Not without goodreason. I don't understand, and what I don't understand I can't beparty to. "

She tried the effect of a wistful smile. "Please! I wish you wouldn'tmake me tell you. "

"I wish you wouldn't put me in such an uncomfortable position. I don'tlike to refuse you anything you've set your heart on, but my notion ofplaying the game is to lose like a loser and--win like a winner. "

"That's just it. I can't win like a winner because--because I didn'twin fairly. "

"You never cheated. "

It was less a question than an assertion. 

"How do you know?"

"I'd have known quick enough if you'd tried. Anyway, you're not thatkind. "

"How do you know I'm not?"

There was a pause. Then Trego smiled oddly. "Better not ask me. Youdon't know me very well yet. "

She coloured faintly. "Then I must tell you you are wrong. I didcheat. I did, I tell you! I played for money without a cent to pay mylosses if I lost. You don't call that fair play, do you?"

"Depends. Of course, it's hard to believe. "

"I'm penniless. You don't understand my position here. I'm--nobody. Mrs. Standish took pity on me because I was out of work and brought mehere to act as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold. "

Trego nodded heavily. "I guessed it. I mean I felt pretty sure youwere--well, of another world. " He jerked a disrespectful head towardthe smiling face of Gosnold House. "The same as me, " he added. "That'swhy I thought . . . But it doesn't matter what I thought. "

An unreasonable resentment held her true to the course of her purpose. 

"Well, now you know, you must see it's impossible--"

"I don't, " he contended stubbornly. "Maybe I'm the devil's advocate, but the way I see it--to begin with, I was playing for money; if I hadwon I'd have expected you to pay up. "

"But I couldn't--"

"You would have; that is, Mrs. Gosnold would have paid for you. It wasup to her. She meant it that way. She was staking you against thePride person and myself; that's why you played together; if you andshe had lost, she'd have paid for both. So, you see, you may as wellquit trying to make me touch that money. "

His sophistry baffled her. She shook her head, confused and a littleangry in defeat, liking him less than ever. 

"Very well. But I don't feel right about it--and I think it mostunkind of you. "

"Sorry. I only want to play the game as it lies, and this is my ideaof doing it. "

There was a brief pause while Sally, at a loss, stared out over theshining harbour, now more than ever sensible of the profound, peacefulbeauty of its azure floor over which bright sails swung and swayedlike slim, tall ladies treading a measure of some stately dance. 

"If you ask my definition of unfair play, " Trego volunteered, "it'sthis present attitude of yours--forcing a quarrel on me and gettingmad because I stick up for my notion of a square deal!"

"Oh, you misunderstand!" she protested. "I'm only distressed by myconception of what's wrong. "

"It's the worst of gambling, " he complained: "always winds up in somesort of a row. "

"Why gamble, then?"

"Why not? We've got to do something here to keep from yawning in oneanother's faces. "

"Is there so much of it going on all the time--gambling--here?"

"Oh, not a great deal. Not bad gambling, at least. " He smiled faintly. "Not what I call gambling. But I was bred on strong meat--in miningcamps--where my father made his money. There men gambled with theirlives. Here--_hmp!_" He grunted amusedly. "It's just enough like thereal thing to make a fellow restless. Sometimes I wish the old manhadn't struck it quite so rich. If he hadn't, we'd both be happier. Asit is, he fluffs around, making a pest of himself in Wall Streetbecause he thinks it's the proper thing. And here am I, instead ofearning dividends on what little knowledge I do happen to possess, sticking round with a set of idle egoists, simply because the oldman's got his heart set on his son being in society! He won't be happytill he sees me married to one of these--er--women. Sometimes. . . "

Morosely he ruminated on the suppressed adjective for a moment. "Sometimes I feel it coming over me that the governor's liable to behappy, according to his lights, considerably quicker than I am. "

CHAPTER VIII

A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

She sat beside the wide window of her bed-chamber, on that thirdmidnight at Gosnold House, in a state of lawless exaltation not lessphysical than spiritual and mental, a temper that proscribed sleephopelessly. 

The window was open, the night air still and suave and warm, her soleprotection a filmy negligee over a night-dress of sheerest silk andlace. And in that hour Sarah Manvers was as nearly a beautiful womanas ever she was to be--her face faintly flushed in the rich moonlight, faintly shadowed from within by the rich darkness of her blood, herdreaming eyes twin pools of limpid shadow, her dark lips shadowed by aslight elusive smile. 

She was relishing the sensation of life intensely, almost painfully;she was intensely alive for the first time in all her life, it seemed;in throat and wrists and temples pulses sang, now soft, now loud; andall her body glowed, from crown of head to tips of toes nestlingin silken mules, with the warmth and the languor of life. 

She was deeply and desperately in love. 

The genius of her curious destiny, not content with making her free ofall the good material things of life, had granted her as well thislast and dearest boon. For though her years were twenty-seven she hadnot loved before. She had dreamed of love, had been in love with loveand with being loved, had believed she loved; but nothing in herexperience compared with such rapture as to-night obsessed her being, wholly and without respite. 

Life, indeed, grants no compensation for the ignominious necessity oflove but this, that no other love was ever real but to-day's alone. 

And so the beauty of that moonlight midnight seemed supernal. Becalmed, the island lay steeped in floods of ethereal silver, its skyan iridescent dome, its sea a shimmering shield of opalescence, itslawns and terraces argentine shadowed with deepest violet. There wasnever a definite sound, only the sibilance of a stillness made of manyinterwoven sounds, soft lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feetbelow, hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and plantations, sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and homeless in that vastserenity, wailing of a far violin, rumour of distant motor-cars. Anight of potent witchery, a woman willingly bewitched. . . . 

In fancy she still could feel the pulsing of his heart against herbosom, the caressing touch of his hands, the warm flutter of hisbreath in her hair and upon her cheek, as in that last dance; and withan inexpressible hunger at once of flesh and soul she yearned to feelthem all again, to be once more within the magic circle of his arms, to live once more in the light of his countenance. 

It mattered nothing that she loved hopelessly a gracelessrunagate--and knew it well. She had not needed the indirect warningsof Adele Standish and Mercedes Pride that the man was nothing betterthan an engaging scamp. Who was she to demand worthier object for herlove? She was precisely Nobody, and might waste her passion as shewould, and none but herself the worse for it. 

Nor did it matter that her love was desperate of return. She knew thathe recognised and was a little amused and a little flattered by herunspoken admiration, but more deeply than that affected not at all. But that was his imperial prerogative; she did not mind; temporarilyshe believed herself quite content, and that she would continue so aslong as permitted to hug to her secret heart the unutterable sweetnessof being in love with him. Again, she was Nobody and didn't count, while he was precisely all that she had longed for ever since she wasof an age to dream of love. He was not only of an admirableperson, he wore the habit of distinction like a garment made for himalone. In short, the man was irresistible, and the woman didn't evenwant to resist but only despaired of opportunity ever to capitulate. 

She was as love-sick as a schoolgirl of sixteen; a hundred times, ifonce, her barely parted lips breathed his name to the sympatheticnight that never would betray her: "_Donald--Donald--DonaldLyttleton_. . . . "

Now all the while she wasted sighing for him by the window Mr. Lyttleton spent idly speculating about her--lounging in a corner ofthe smoking-room, on the edge of a circle of other masculine guestsmaking common excuse of alcohol to defer the tiresome formalities ofgoing to bed and getting up again in the morning. 

If this gentleman was Sally's junior in the matter of a year or two, he was overwhelmingly her senior in knowledge of his world--a worldinto which he had been brought neither to toil nor yet to spin, butsimply to be the life and soul of the party. And at twenty-five he wasbeyond permitting sentiment to run away with judgment; he could resisttemptation with as much fortitude as any man, always providing hecould see any sound reason for resisting it--any reason, that is, promising a profit from the deed of abstinence. 

Mr. Lyttleton had ten thousand a year of his own, income from aprincipal fortunately beyond his power to hypothecate; he spent twentythousand with an easy conscience; he earnestly desired to be able tospend fifty without fear of consequences. Talents such as his meritedmaintenance--failing independent means, such maintenance as comes frommarrying money and a wife above suspicion of parsimony. If only he hadbeen able, or even had cared to behave himself, Mr. Lyttleton'sfortunes might long since have been established on some suchsatisfactory basis. But he was sorely handicapped by the weakness of asentimental nature; women would persist in falling in love withhim--always, unhappily, women of moderate means. He couldn't helpbeing sorry for them and seeking to assuage their sufferings; hecouldn't forever be running away from some infatuate female; and so hewas forever being found out and forgiven--by women. Most men, meanlyenvious, disliked him; all men held him in pardonable distrust. Devilish hard luck. 

Take this Manwaring girl--pretty, intelligent, artless little woman, perhaps a bit mature, but fascinating all the same, affectingly naiveabout her trouble, which was simply spontaneous combustion, one moreof those first-sight affairs. He had noticed the symptoms immediately, that night of her introduction to Gosnold House. He hadn't paid muchattention to her during luncheon, and only sought her out--whenthey got up, on the spur of the moment, that informal after-dinnerdance by moonlight on the veranda--partly because he happened tonotice her sitting to one side, so obviously longing for him to askher, partly because it was his business to dance, and partlybecause--well, because it was less dangerous, everything considered, than dancing with Mrs. Standish. 

And then the eloquent treachery of Sally's eyes and that littlegesture of surrender with which she yielded herself to his guidance. It was really too bad, he thought, especially since she had madeoccasion to tell him frankly she hadn't a dollar to bless herselfwith. Still, he must give himself credit for behaving admirably; hehadn't encouraged the girl. Not much, at all events. Of course, itwasn't in human nature to ignore her entirely after that; moreover, toslight her would have been conspicuous, not to say uncivil. But onemust draw the line somewhere. 

To-night, for example, he had danced with her perhaps too often forher own good, to say nothing of his own. And they had sat out a danceor two--awfully old-fashioned custom; went out years ago--still, onedid it, regardless, now and then. 

Curious girl, the Manwaring; one moment almost melting into his arms, the next practically warning him against herself. And curiouslyreticent--said she was "Nobody"--let it go at that. Very probably toldthe truth; she seemed to know nobody who was anybody; and though shewas apparently very much at her ease most of the time, and not readilyimpressed, he noticed now and then a little tensity in her manner, acovert watchfulness of other women, as though she were waiting for hercue. 

At this juncture in his reverie Mr. Lyttleton peremptorily dismissedluckless Miss Manwaring from his mind, compounded his nightcap at thebuffet, and joined in the general conversation. 

Coincidentally the reverie of Miss Manwaring at her bedchamber windowdigressed to review fragmentarily the traffic and discoveries of threewonderful days. 

Days in whose glamorous radiance the romance of Cinderella paled tothe complexion of a sordidly realistic narrative of commonplaces;contemplating them, Sally, for the sake of her self-conceit, feltconstrained to adopt an aloof, superior, sceptical pose. Concedingfreely the incredible reality of this phase of her history, she nonethe less contended that in it no more true permanence inhered than ina dream. 

She recapitulated many indisputable signs of the instability of heraffairs. And of all those the foremost, the most glaring, was herpersonal success, at once actual and impossible. She saw herself(from that remote and weather-beaten coign of scepticism) movingfreely to and fro in the great world of the socially elect, unhindered, unquestioned, tacitly accepted, meeting, chatting, treating and parting with its denizens with a gesture of confidencethat was never the gesture of S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions; aNobody on terms of equality with indisputable Somebodies--vastlyimportant Somebodies indeed, for the most part; so much so that bycommon consent mankind had created for them a special world within theworld and set it apart for their exclusive shelter and delectation, for them to live in and have their being untroubled and uncontaminatedby contact with the commonalty. 

For all that, Sally couldn't see why they must be so cared for andcatered to. The only thing that apparently distinguished them fromthose who lacked their advantages, who looked up reverently to themand read enviously of their doings in the papers, was their assurance, a quality ostensibly inimitable; yet she imitated it with seeminglyflawless art. A contradiction that defied her wits to reconcile. 

She wasted time in the endeavour; her own personality wasprepossessing; she had sufficient tact never to seek to ingratiateherself; her solecisms were few and insignificant, and theintroduction of Abigail Gosnold was an unimpeachable credential. 

As for her antecedents, the lie which credited her to the city ofMassillon passed unchallenged, while a conspiracy of silence keptprivate to the few acquainted with it that hideous secret of herdepartment-store servitude. Mrs. Gosnold would have said nothing outof sheer kindness of heart even if it had not been her settled habitto practise the difficult arts of minding her own business and keepingher own counsel. Savage was still in New York, but had he been atGosnold House would have imitated the example set by his amiablesister and held his tongue even when most exasperated with Sally. Mr. Trego, of course, knew no more than what he had been free to surmisefrom the girl's impulsive confession that she had been out of bothwork and money when befriended by Mrs. Standish; but, whatever hisinferences, he kept them to himself. 

A simple, sincere, stubborn soul, this Mr. Trego; so, at least, hemade himself appear to Sally, persistently seeking her and dumblyoffering a friendship which she, in the preoccupation of her grandpassion, had neither time nor wish to cultivate, and which he himselfingenuously apologised for on the plea of self-defence. He franklyprofessed a mortal dread of "these women, " one of whom, he averredmysteriously, was bent on marrying him by main strength andgood-will first time she caught him with lowered guard. 

His misgivings were measurably corroborated by the attitude towardSally adopted by Mrs. Standish in her capacity as close friend, foil, and confidant of Mrs. Artemas. In the course of those three days thegirl had not been insensible to intimations of a strong, if as yetrestrained, animus in the mind of the older woman. In alarm and regretshe did her futile best to discourage this gentleman without beingovertly discourteous. She could hardly do more; impossible to explainto her benefactress that he was not the man of her heart's choice. 

Unfortunately, Trego was indifferent to tempered rebuffs. 

"If you don't mind, " he interrupted one of Sally's protracted snubs, "I'll just stick around and keep on enjoying the society of a humanbeing. Of course, I know these others are all human in their way, butit isn't your way or mine. Perhaps it only seems so to me because Idon't understand 'em. It's quite possible. One thing's sure, theydon't understand me. At least, the women don't; I can get along withthe men--most of 'em. They're not a bad lot, if immature. You canstand a lot of foolishness from children once you realise theirgrown-uppishness is only make-believe. "

"They don't know how to enjoy themselves, " he expatiated; "they've gottoo much of everything, including spare time. What's a holiday toanybody who has never done a stroke of work? You and I know thedifference; we can appreciate the fun of loafing between spells ofwork; but these people have got no standards to measure their fun by, so it's all the same to them--flat, vapid, monotonous, unless theyseason it up with cocktails and carrying on; and even that gets tohave all the same flavour of tastelessness after a while. That's whyso many of these women are going in for the suffragette business; itisn't that they care a whoop for the vote; it's because they want theexcitement of wanting something they haven't got and can't get bysigning a check for it. "

"You're prejudiced, " the girl objected. "You're at loose-endsyourself, idle and restless, and it distorts your mental vision. Formy part, I've never met more charming people--"

"That's your astigmatism, " he contended. "You've been wanting thissociety thing all your life, and now you've got it you're as pleasedas a child with a new toy. Wait till the paint wears off and it won'tshut its eyes when you put it down on its back and sawdust begins toleak out at the joints. "

"Wouldn't it be more kind of you to leave me to discover the sawdustfor myself?"

"It unquestionably would, and I ought to be kicked, " Trego agreedheartily. "I only started this in fun, anyway, to make you see why itis you look so good to me--different--so sound and sane and wholesomethat I just naturally can't help pestering you. "

She did not know what to say to that. She suffered him. . . . 

Her duties as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold proved, when inaugurated thesecond morning after her arrival, to be at once light and interesting. Her employer was conservative enough in an unmannerly age to insist onanswering all personal correspondence with her own hand; what passedbetween her and her few intimates was known to herself alone. But shecarried on, in addition, an animated correspondence with numberlessfrauds--antique dealers, charities, professional poor relations, social workers, and others of that ilk--which proved tremendouslydiverting to her amanuensis, especially when it transpired that Mrs. Gosnold had a mind and temper of her own, together with a vocabularyamply adequate to her powers of ironic observation. This last giftcame out strongly in her diary, a daily record of her variousinterests and activities which she dictated, interspersing dry detailswith many an acid annotation. 

When all was finished Sally found she had been busied for littlemore than two hours, and was given to understand that her duties wouldbe made more burdensome only by the addition of a little lightbookkeeping when she settled down to the routine of regularemployment. 

Of the alleged high play, at cards or otherwise, she had yet, at thisthird midnight, to see any real evidence. Mrs. Gosnold mostundoubtedly played a stiff game of bridge, but she played it with amasterly facility, the outcome of long practice and profound study;her losses, when she lost, were minimised. Nor was there ever a signof cheating that came under Sally's observation. Everybody played whodidn't dance, and vice versa, but nobody seemed to play for the meresake of winning money. And while the influx of week-end guests by theFriday evening boat brought the number at Gosnold House up totwenty-two, they were all apparently amiable, self-centred folk oflong and intimate acquaintance with one another as well as with theirhostess and all her neighbours on the Island. Of that dubious crew ofadventurers she had been led to expect there was never a hint. 

Such provision as their hostess made for her guests' entertainment andamusement they patronised or ignored with equal nonchalance, accordingto individual whim; they commanded breakfasts for all hours of themorning, and they lunched at home and dined abroad, or reversedthe order, or sought all their meals in the homes of neighbouringfriends, quite without notice or apology. Such was the modish mannerof that summer of 1915--a sedulous avoidance of anything resemblingacknowledgment of obligation to those who entertained. Indeed, if oneinterpreted their attitude at its face value, the shoe was on theother foot. 

And they brimmed the alleged hollowness of their days with anextraordinary amount of running about. There was incessant shifting ofinterest from one focal point to another of the colony, a perpetuallyrestless swarming hither and yon to some new centre of distraction, acontinual kaleidoscopic parade of the most wonderful and extravagantclothing the world has ever seen. 

To the outsider, of course, all this was not merely entertaining andnovel, if much as she had imagined it would be, it was more--it wasfascination, it was enchantment, it was the joy of living mademanifest, it was life. 

If only this bubble might not burst!

Of course, it must; even if not too good to be true, it was toowonderful to be enduring; the clock strikes twelve for everyCinderella, and few are blessed enough to be able to leave behind thema matchless slipper. 

But whatever happened, nothing now could prevent her carrying toher grave the memory of this one glorious flight: "better to haveloved and lost--" The wraith of an old refrain troubled Sally'sreverie. How did it go? "Now die the dream--"

Saturate with exquisite melancholy, she leaned out over thewindow-sill into the warm, still moonlight, drinking deep of thewine-scent of roses, dwelling upon the image of him whom she loved somadly. 

What were the words again?

 ". . . The past is not in vain, For wholly as it was your life, Can never be again, my dear, Can never be again. "

She shook a mournful head, sadly envisaging the loveliness of theworld through a mist of facile tears; that was too exquisitely, toopoignantly true of her own plight; for, wholly as it was, her lifecould never be again. 

And not for worlds would she have had it otherwise. 

Below, in the deserted drawing-room, a time-mellowed clock chimedsonorously the hour of two. 

Two o'clock of a Sunday morning, and all well; long since GosnoldHouse had lapsed into decent silence; an hour ago she had heard thelast laggard footsteps, the last murmured good nights in thecorridor outside her door as the men-folk took themselves reluctantlyoff to their beds. 

She leaned still farther out over the sill, peering along the gleamingwhite facade; no window showed a light that she could see. Shelistened acutely; not a sound but the muttering of fretful littlewaves and the drowsy complaint of some bird troubled in its sleep. 

Of all that heedless human company, it seemed, she alone remainedawake. 

Something in that circumstance proved almost resistlessly provocativeto her innate lust for adventure. For upward of two hours she had beenpassive there in her chair, a prey to uneasy thoughts; now she wasweary with much thinking, but as far as ever from the wish to sleep;never, indeed, more wide awake--possessed by a demon of restlessness, consumed with desire to rise up and go out into the scented moonstrucknight and lose herself in its loneliness and--see what she should see. 

Why not? No one need ever know. A staircase at her end of thecorridor--little used except by servants--led to a small door openingdirectly upon the terrace. Providing it were not locked and the keyremoved, there was no earthly reason why, if so minded, she should notgo quietly forth that way and drink her fill of the night'sloveliness. 

To a humour supple to such temptation the tang of lawlessness ina project innocent enough was irresistible. Besides, what was theharm? What could be the objection, even were the escapade to bediscovered by misadventure?

Among other items in her collection of borrowed plumage she possessedan evening wrap, somewhat out of fashion, but eminently adapted to herpurpose--long enough to cloak her figure to the ground, thuseliminating all necessity for dressing against chance encounter withsome other uneasy soul. Worn with black stockings and slippers, itwould render her almost invisible in shadow. 

In another minute, without turning on a light, she had found anddonned those several articles, and from her door was narrowlyinspecting the hallway before venturing a step across the threshold. 

It was quite empty and silent, its darkness moderated only by thesingle nightlight burning at the head of the main staircase. 

Satisfied, she closed the door and crept noiselessly down the steps, to find the side door not even locked. 

Leaving it barely ajar, she stepped out beneath the stars, hesitatedfor a moment of cautious reconnaissance, then darted across an openspace of moonlight as swiftly as the shadow of a cloud wind-spedathwart the moon, and so gained the sheltering shadow of the highhedge between the formal garden and tennis-court. 

The dew-drenched turf that bordered the paths muffled her footsteps aseffectually as could be wished, and keeping circumspectly in shadow, the better to escape observation from any of the windows, she gainedat length that corner of the terrace overlooking the water where sheand Trego had paused for their first talk. 

Nothing now prevented her from appreciating the view to the full. Enchanted, she withdrew a little way from the brow of the cliff to aseat on the stone wall, overshadowed by the hedge, and for a long timesat there motionless, content. 

Below her the harbour lay steel-grey and still within its guardianheadlands, a hundred slim, white pleasure craft riding its silenttide. Far out a Sound steamer crawled like some amphibious glowworm, its triple tier of deck-lights almost blended into one. Farther stillthe lights of the mainland glimmered low upon the horizon. . 

At a little distance, from a point invisible, an incautious footstepgrated upon a gravel path of the terrace and was instantly hushed. 

But the girl, stiffened to rigidity in her place, fancied she couldhear the whisper of grass beneath stealthy feet. 

Abruptly a man came out into broad moonlight and, pausing on a stoneplatform at the edge of the cliff by the head of the long, steep, wooden zigzag of stairs to the sands, looked back toward thehouse. 

Sally held her breath. But her heart was like a mad thing--the man wasDonald Lyttleton. He still wore evening dress, but had exchanged theformal coat for that hybrid garment which Sally had lately learnedshould _not_ be termed a Tuxedo. The brim of a soft, dark hat maskedhis eyes. He carried one shoulder stiffly, as if holding something inthe hollow of his arm. She could not make out or imagine what thismight be. 

His hesitation was brief. Satisfied, he swung round to the stairway, in another instant had vanished. Only light footfalls on the woodensteps told of a steady descent, and at the same time furnishedassurance that Sally had not victimised herself with a waking visionbred of her infatuation. 

The footfalls, not loud at best, had become inaudible before she foundcourage to approach the platform. With infinite pains to avoid asound, she peered over the edge of its stone parapet. 

For a little the gulf swam giddily beneath her who was never quiteeasy at any unusual height. But she set herself with determination tomaster this weakness and presently was able to examine the beach witha clear vision. 

It was only partially shadowed by the cliffs, but that shadow wasdense, and outside it nothing stirred. None the less, after atime she was able to discern Lyttleton's figure kneeling on the sandsat the immediate foot of the cliff, a hundred feet or so to one sideof the steps. And while she watched he rose, stood for a littlestaring out to sea, wasted a number of matches lighting a cigarette(which seemed curious, in view of the unbroken calm) and moved on outof sight beyond a shoulder of stone. 

She waited fully ten minutes; but he did not reappear. 

Then, retreating to her seat on the stone wall, she waited as longagain--still no sign of Lyttleton. 

But something else marked that second period of waiting that intriguedher no less than the mysterious actions of her beloved--this althoughshe could imagine no link between the two. 

Some freak of chance drew her attention to a small, dark shape, withone staring red eye, that was stealing quietly across the Sound in themiddle distance--of indefinite contour against the darkening waters, but undoubtedly a motor-boat, since there was no wind to drive anysailing vessel at its pace, or indeed at any pace at all. 

While she watched it incuriously it came to a dead pause, and soremained for several minutes. Then, deliberately, with infinitelysardonic effect, it winked its single eye of red at her--winkedportentously three times. 

She made nothing of that, and in her profound ignorance of all thingsnautical might have considered it some curious bit of sea etiquettehad she not, the next instant, caught out of the corner of her eye thesudden glow of a window lighted in the second story of Gosnold House. 

As she turned in surprise the light went out. A pause of perhapstwenty seconds ensued. Then the window shone out again--one in theleft wing, the wing at the end of which her bedchamber was located. But when she essayed to reckon the rooms between it and her own itturned black again, and after another twenty seconds once more shoneout and once more was lightless. 

After this it continued stubbornly dark, and by the time Sally gave uptrying to determine precisely which window it had been, and turned hergaze seaward again, the boat had vanished. Its lights, at least, wereno longer visible, and it was many minutes before the girl succeededin locating the blur it made on the face of the waters. It seemed tobe moving, but the distance was so great that she could not be surewhich way. 

A signal--yes, obviously; but between whom and for what purpose?

Who was on that boat? And who the tenant of that room of the flashingwindow? She was satisfied that the latter was one of a row of sixwindows to three rooms occupied by Mrs. Standish, Mrs. Artemas, and a pretty young widow who had arrived late Saturday afternoon andwhose name Sally had yet to learn. 

She pondered it all with ever-deepening perplexity until a change cameover the night--a wind stirred, leaves rattled, boughs soughedplaintively, the waters wakened and filled the void of silence withsoft clashing. Then, shivering, Sally rose and crept back toward thehouse. 

But when she paused on the edge of the last shadow, preparatory to thedash across the moonlit space to the door, a step sounded beside her, a hand caught at her cloak. 

She started back with a stifled cry. 

"Steady!" Lyttleton's voice counselled her guardedly. "Don't make arow! Blessed if it ain't Miss Manwaring!"

CHAPTER IX

PICAROON

Plucking peremptorily at her cloak, Lyttleton drew the girl to himand, seizing her hand, without further ceremony dragged her round theclump of shrubbery to a spot secure from observation. 

She submitted without a hint of resistance. But she was tremblingviolently, and the contact with his hand was as fire to her blood. 

Pausing, he stared and laughed uncertainly. 

"Of all people!" he said in an undertone. "I never for an instantthought of you!"

Controlling her voice tolerably, she asked directly: "How did you getup again without my seeing you?"

"Simply enough--by the steps of the place next door. I saw youwatching me--saw your head over the edge of the landing, black againstthe sky--and knew I'd never know who it was, unless by strategy. So Icame up the other way and cut across to head you off. "

He added, after a pause, with a semi-apologetic air: "What do you meanby it, anyway'?"

"What--?"

"Watching me this way--spying on me--?"

"But I didn't mean to. I was as surprised to see you as you were, justnow, to see me. "

"Honestly?"

His eyes searched hers suspiciously. Flushing, she endeavoured toassume some little dignity--drew up, lifted her chin, resumedpossession of her hand. 

"Of course, " she said in an injured voice. 

"Sure Mrs. --sure nobody sent you to spy on me?"

"Mr. Lyttleton!"

"I want to believe you. "

"You've no right not to!"

"But what, will you tell me, are you doing out here this time ofnight?"

"I came out because I wanted to--I was restless, couldn't sleep. "

He reflected upon this doubtfully. "Funny freak, " he remarked. 

"You're impertinent!"

"I don't mean to be. Forgive me. I'm only puzzled--"

"So am I puzzled, " she retorted with spirit. "Suppose you tell me whatyou're doing out here at this time of night--down on thebeach--anxious to escape notice. If you ask me, I call that a funnierfreak than mine!"

"Quite so, " he agreed soberly; "and a very reasonable retort. Only Ican't tell you. It's--er--a private matter. "

"So I presumed--"

"Look here, Miss Manwaring; this is a serious business with me. Giveme your word---"

"What makes that essential? Why do you think I'd lie--to you '?"

It was just that little quaver prefacing her last two words whichprecipitated the affair. Otherwise a question natural enough under thecircumstances would have proved innocuous. But for the life of her shecould not control her voice; on those simple words it broke; and sothe question became confession--confession, accusation and challengeall in, one. 

It created first a pause, an instant of breathless suspense, whileLyttleton stared in doubt and Sally steeled herself, with an effect oftrembling, reluctant, upon the brink of some vast mystery. 

Then: "To me?" he said slowly. "You mean me to understand you mightlie to another-but not to me?"

Her response was little better than a gasp: "You know it!"

He acknowledged this with half a nod; he knew it well, too well. 

Now she must have seemed very lovely to the man in that moment ofdefiance. She saw his eyes lighten with a singular flash, saw his facedarken suddenly in the paling moonlight, and heard the sharp sibilanceof his indrawn breath. 

And whether or not it was so, she fancied the wind had fallen, thatthe night was hushed once more, and now more profoundly than it hadever been, as though the very world were standing still inanticipation. 

She heard him cry, almost angrily: "Oh, damn it, I must not!"

And with that she was in his arms, sobbing, panting, going to heavenagainst his lips. . . . 

Then fell a lull. She was conscious that his embrace relaxed a trifle, heard the murmur of his consternation: "Oh, this is madness, madness!"

But when she tried to release herself his arms tightened. 

"No!" he said thickly, "not now--not after this. Don't. I love you!"

She braced her hands against his breast, struggled, thrust him awayfrom her, found herself free at last. 

"You don't!" she sobbed miserably; "You don't love me. Don't lie tome! Let me go!"

"Why do you say that? You love me, and I--"

"Don't say it! It isn't true! I know. I threw myself at your head. What else could you do? You care nothing about me; to you I'm just onemore silly woman. No; let me be, please! You do not love me--youdon't, you don't, you don't!"

He shrugged, relinquished his effort to recapture her, muttereduncertainly: "Blessed if I know!"

Recovering a little, she drew her hands swiftly across face and eyesthat still burned with his kisses. 

"Oh!" she cried brokenly, "why did you--why did I--?"

"What's the good of asking that? It's done now, " he argued with atouch of aggrieved resentment. "I didn't mean--I meant to--I don'tknow what I meant. Only--never this. "

He took an impatient stride or two in the shelter of the shadow, turned back to her, expostulant: "It's too bad! I'd have givenworlds--"

"But now I've gone and done it!" she retorted bitterly. In chagrin, her own indignation mounted. "It is too bad, poor Mr. Lyttleton!"

That was too much; he came closer and grasped her wrist. "Why do youtalk that way to me?" he demanded wrathfully. "What have I done--?"

"You? Nothing!" she broke in, roughly wrenching her hand free in afury of humiliation. "Do you ever do anything? Isn't the woman alwaysthe aggressor? Never your fault--of course not! But don't, please, worry; I shan't ever remind you. You're quite free to go andforget what's happened as quickly as you like!"

She scrubbed the knuckles of one hand roughly across her quiveringlips. "Forget!" she cried. "Oh, if only I might ever . . . But that'smy penance, the mortification of remembering how I took advantage ofthe chivalry of a man who didn't care for me--and couldn't!"

"You don't know that, " Lyttleton retorted. 

Provoked to imprudence by this sudden contrariety, this strangeinconsistence, he made a futile attempt to regain her hand. "Don't befoolish. Can't you see I'm crazy about you?"

"Oh, yes!" she laughed, contemptuous. 

"You're no fool, " he declared hotly. "You know well you can't--a womanlike you--play with a man like me as if he were a child. I tell youI--"

He checked himself with a firm hand; since, it seemed, she was one whotook such matters seriously. "I'm mad about you, " he repeated in amore subdued tone, "and I'd give anything if . . . Only . . . Thedeuce of it is, I can't . . . "

"You can't afford to!" she snapped him up. "Oh, I understand youperfectly. Didn't I warn you I was penniless? You can't afford to lovea penniless Nobody, can you--a shop-girl masquerading inborrowed finery! No--please don't look so incredulous; you must haveguessed. Anyway, that's all I am, or was--a shop-girl out ofwork--before I was brought here to be Mrs. Gosnold's secretary. Andthat's all I'll be to-morrow, or as soon as ever she learns that I waylay her men guests at all hours and--steal their kisses!"

"She won't learn that from me, " said Lyttleton, "not if you hold yourtongue. "

She drew back a pace, as though he had made to strike her, and for amoment was speechless, staring into the new countenance he showedher--the set, cold mask of the insolent, conquering male. And chagrinate at her heart like an acid, so that inwardly she writhed with thepain of it. 

"I--!" she breathed, incredulous. "I hold my tongue! Oh! Do you thinkfor an instant I'm anxious to advertise my ignominy?"

"It's a bargain, then?" he suggested coolly. "For my part, I don'tmind admitting I'd much rather it didn't ever become known that I, too, was--let's say--troubled with insomnia to-night. But if you saynothing, and I say nothing--why, of course--there's not much Iwouldn't do for you, my dear!"

After a little she said quietly: "Of course I deserved this. But I'mglad now it turned out the way it has. Two minutes ago I was wild withthe shame of making myself so cheap as to let you--of beingsuch a fool as to dream you would lower yourself to the level of awoman not what you'd call your social equal, who could so far forgether dignity as to let you see she cared for you. But, of course, sinceI am not that--your peer--but only a shop-girl, I'm glad it'shappened. Because now I understand some things better--you, forexample. I understand you very well now--too well!"

She laughed quietly to his dashed countenance: "Oh, I'm cured, nofear!" and turned as if to leave him. 

He proved, however, unexpectedly loath to let her go. 

Such spirit was not altogether new in his experience, but it wasn'tevery day one met a girl who had it; whatever her social status, herewas rare fire--or the promise of it. Nor had he undervalued her; hehad suspected as much from the very first; connoisseur that he was, his flair had not deceived him. 

His lips tightened, his eyes glimmered ominously. 

And she was, in a way, at his mercy. If what she said of herself weretrue, he need only speak a word and she would be as good as thrownout. Even Abigail Gosnold couldn't protect her, insist on peopleinviting a shop-girl to their houses. And if such drudgery were reallywhat she had come up from, you might be sure she'd break herheart rather than forfeit all this that she had gained. 

And then again she had been all for him from the very first. She hadadmitted as much out of her own mouth. Her own mouth, for that matter, had taken his kisses--and hungrily, or he was no judge of kissing. Only the surprise of it, his own dumb unreadiness, his unwonted lackof ingenuity and diplomatics had almost lost her to him. Not quite, however; it was not yet too late; and though the risk was great, thepenalty heavy if he were discovered pursuing an affair under thisroof, the game was well worth the candle. 

Thus Mr. Lyttleton to his conscience; and thus it happened that, whenshe turned to go, he stepped quickly to her side and said quietly:"Oh, please, my dear--one minute. "

The unexpected humility of his tone, mixed with the impudence of thatterm of endearment, so struck her that she hesitated despite thecounsel of a sound intuition. 

"We mustn't part this way--misunderstanding one another, " he insisted, ignoring the hostility in her attitude and modulating his voice to atone whose potency often had been proved. "Three words can set meright with you, if you'll only listen--"

She said frostily: "Well?"

"Three words. " He drew still nearer. "I've said them onceto-night. Will you hear them again? No--please listen! I meant what Isaid, but I was carried out of myself--clumsy--bungled my meaning. Youmisunderstood, misconstrued, and before I could correct you I'd lostmy temper. You said cruel things--just enough, no doubt, from yourpoint of view--and you put words into my mouth, read thoughts into mymind that never were there. And I let you do me that injustice becauseI'm hot-tempered. And then, I'm not altogether a free agent; I'm notmy own master, quite; and that's difficult to explain. If I could makeyou understand--"

Grown a little calmer, she couldn't deny there was somethingreasonable in his argument. She really had given him little chance;impulse and instinct had worked upon her, causing her to jump atconclusions which, however well founded in fact, were without excusein act. If he had kissed her, it wasn't without provocation, noragainst her will; she had got no more than she asked for. The troublewas, she no longer wanted it. She had been the dupe of her own folly, by her own romantic bent and the magnetism of the man blinded to theessentially meretricious spirit clothed in the flesh of his engagingperson. 

It had been a simple and perhaps inevitable infatuation of a mind alltoo ready to be infatuated, needing heroic treatment--such as she'dhad and blushed to remember--to cure. And the shock of wakingfrom that mad dream, no less than the shock of physical contact, hadmade her frantic and unreasonable. She could but admit that and, admitting it, be generous enough to let him clear himself. 

If only he would not insist on his declaration of love, that she knewto be untrue, as if the compliment of it must be a balm to a spirit asbruised as her own!

He went on: "And all this because I seemed to hesitate--because I didhesitate, knowing I couldn't say all I wanted to. And before I couldexplain--"

"You're not married?" she inquired with an absence of emotion thatshould have warned him. 

"Of course not. But I'm dependent, and good for nothing in a businessway. My income is from my family, and depends on their favour. Whatcan I say? I love you--I do--on my soul, I do!"

He put his arms once more round her shoulders, and she did not resisthim, but none the less held her head up and back, eying him steadily. 

"I love you desperately, but I can't ask you to marry me until I getthe permission of my family. Till then . . . Is there any reason . . . ?Be kind to me, be sweet to me, O sweetest of women! I'm mad, madabout you!"

With no more warning he lowered his head, fastening his lips tothe curve of her throat; and discovered suddenly and definitely hiserror. In a twinkling it was a savage animal he held in his arms, andbefore he knew what was happening she had broken his grasp and he wasreeling back with a head that rang from the impact of an open handupon his ear. 

"You shrew!" he chattered. "You infernal little vixen! And Ithought--!"

He sprang toward her, beside himself, with a purpose that failed onlythrough the intervention of a third party. 

A man swinging suddenly round the end of the hedge shouldered betweenLyttleton and the object of his rage--a man whose bulk, in the looseflannels of a lounge suit, seemed double that of Lyttleton. 

"Oh, here!" said Trego impatiently, but without raising his voice. "Come, come!" He caught Lyttleton's wrists and forced them down. "Don't be an idiot--as well as a cad. Do you want to rouse thehousehold? If you do, and get kicked out, you'll never get anotherchance on this island, my friend. "

"Damn your impudence!" Lyttleton stuttered, sufficiently recalled tohis senses to guard his tone, and wrenched at his wrists. "Let me go!I'll--"

"Sure I'll let you go, " Trego agreed cheerfully. "But unless you wanta thrashing in the presence of a lady, you'll do nothing foolish. "

With this he released Mr. Lyttleton in such wise that he was aninstant later picking himself up from the gravel path. 

And while he was picking himself up he was also reflecting swiftly, this notwithstanding that Sally was no longer present to be a stayupon their brawling. 

If his look was vicious, his tone was subdued as he stood brushing offthe dust of his downfall. 

"Lucky you came when you did, " he said, with an effort to seemcomposed. "I presume I ought to thank you for knocking me about. Thisconfounded temper of mine will get me into serious trouble yet if I'mnot careful. I was driven pretty nearly wild by that little devil--"

"Cut it right there!" Trego interrupted sharply. "I don't knowanything about your row--didn't hear a word that passed between youtwo--and it's none of my business. But if there's any blame to beborne, you'd better shoulder it yourself, for I warn you, I'm notgoing to hear any woman called names by a pup like you!"

CHAPTER X

LEGERDEMAIN

With a mind half distracted, the battlefield of a dozen unhappyemotions of which the most coherent were seething self-reproach andfrantic irritation with Trego (why must it have been he, of all men?)Sally inconsiderately left the two to conclude their quarrel withoutan audience--took to her heels incontinently and sped like a huntedshadow across the open lawn. She flung through the side door and leftit wide, stumbled blindly up-stairs to her bedchamber door, and shutthis last behind her with no anticipation so fond as that of solitudeand freedom to cry her eyes out. 

But she had no more than turned from the door toward her bed, in thesame movement shrugging off her black cloak and letting it fallregardless to the floor, when she became aware that solitude was nomore in that room, that she shared it with an alien Presence--a shapeof misty pallor, filling the armchair, silhouetted vaguely against themoonlight rectangle of the window. 

And she faltered and stopped stock-still, with a strangled whimper, due in part to sheer surprise, but mostly to semi-superstitious dread. 

The Presence did not move; but she was frightfully aware of the fixedregard of its coldly hostile eyes. 

"Who are you?" she demanded in a choking whisper. "What are you doinghere? What do you want?"

"Where have you been?" the Presence retorted in a level voiceinstantly identified as that of Mrs. Standish. "What have you beendoing"--a spectral arm gestured vaguely toward the terrace--"outthere?"

Sally took firm hold of herself and mustered all her wit against thisemergency. 

"I went out, " she said slowly, "because I couldn't sleep, and--everything seemed so lovely. . . . "

"Dressed like that!"

Profound scorn informed this comment. The girl writhed, but heldherself well in hand. 

"It was so late, " she explained, "I didn't think it possible there'dbe anybody else about. "

"Of course you didn't. " The woman's tone was saturated with hatefulinnuendo. "On the other hand, you soon discovered your mistake, didn'tyou?"

Sally muttered a sullen "Yes . . . "

"You're wise not to lie I to me, " her patroness remarked with just asuspicion of satisfaction. "I knew, you see. I've been sitting here, waiting, the better part of an hour, listening to you two bickeringbehind the hedge. You little fool!"

Sally said nothing. Her mood was all obsessed now with the convictionthat this was the end to her life of a moth. An end to everything;come morning and she must be cast forth in disgrace, to go back to . . . 

She choked upon an importunate sob and dug nails into the palms of herhands. 

"Who was the man?" Mrs. Standish pursued inexorably. 

Then she didn't know!

"Does it matter?" Sally fenced. 

"Certainly. I insist upon knowing. Remember your position here--andmine. I have assumed responsibility for you; but I cannot permit youto make me answerable for the antics of a man-crazy woman. If youcan't behave yourself and refrain from annoying my aunt's guests, youmust go. I thought you understood that. "

"Of course, " the girl muttered. "You didn't think I expected anythingelse, did you?"

"Who was the man you followed out there?"

The calculated offensiveness of this was balanced by its suddenrevelation to Sally's mind of the fact that Mrs. Standish didn't knowthere had been two men. It was, however, true that the window did notcommand a view of the approach to the side door. 

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Please, Mrs. Standish, I'd rather not. "

"Think again, my girl, and don't forget the circumstances under whichI was persuaded, against my better judgment, to introduce you here. "

"What do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten you were caught in the act of burglarising myhouse--that I first saw you wearing clothes stolen from me? You told astory, but how do I know it was true? You may well have been anaccomplice of the ruffian who nearly killed my brother. "

"That's hardly likely, is it?"

"How am I to judge? You may have quarrelled and turned on him inrevenge. Judged by your conduct here, I'm sure you're capable ofanything. Or you may have thought you saw a way to win greater profitby aiding my brother. "

"That's all nonsense, " Sally retorted hotly, "and you know it. "

If dismissal from Gosnold House were inevitable, then there was noreason why she should not call her soul her own. 

A pause was filled by the dramatic effect of Mrs. Standish noblyholding her temper in leash. 

"When are you going to answer my question?"

Sally was dumb. 

"Was it--that man you went out there to meet--"

"I didn't go to meet anybody. It was an accident. "

"So _you_ say. Was it some one of the guests here?"

Silence was all the answer. 

"If you persist in your present attitude, remembering your dubioushistory, I have every right to take it for granted you went to meet anaccomplice in crime--"

"Oh, rot!" Sally interjected impatiently. 

And then, encouraged by consciousness of her audacity, she let hertemper run away with her for an instant. 

"All that's no good, " she declared forcibly, "and you know it. If youmean to speak to Mrs. Gosnold about me in the morning, and have mesent away merely because I've had an unpleasant experience and refuseto discuss it with you--when it's none of your affair--why, I can'tstop you. But I'm not a child, to be bullied and browbeaten, and I'mcertainly not going to humour your curiosity about my privatebusiness. And that's flat. Now run and tell, if you really must--butyou won't. "

"Oh-indeed?" Mrs. Standish rose with vast dignity. "And why won't I, if you please?"

"Because you won't dare risk that insurance money, for one thing--"

"So you think you can blackmail--"

"Call it anything you like, " Sally flashed defiantly. "Only bear inmind, I'm not going to submit tamely and be sent away in disgrace, like a kitchen-maid. I'll go, right enough--you don't need to worryabout that--but I'll go on my own excuse. If you tell on me, I'll tellon you, and I'll tell everything I know, too. "

"And what, please, " the woman purred dangerously, "do you think youknow--?"

"What about your signalling that yacht just now?"

It was shot at a venture; she had no real knowledge that the lightedwindow had been that of Mrs. Standish's bedroom; but it was justpossible, and she chanced it, and it told, though she was not yet toknow that with any certainty. 

"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Standish hesitated with a hand onthe door-knob. 

"You know well enough. I saw what I saw. People don't do things likethat unless there's something secret about it, something they don'twant known. "

"I think you must be out of your head, " the woman responded withcrushing hauteur. "I haven't the slightest notion what you mean, andyou needn't trouble to enlighten me. I don't in the least care. Butyou may sleep on this--that your insolence shall be properly rewardedas soon as I can see my aunt in the morning. Good night. "

With a defiant sniff that covered a spirit cringing in consternation, Sally turned her back and threw herself angrily into a chair. But thesound that she had expected of the door closing did not come, andafter a minute she looked round to find Mrs. Standish still at pauseupon the threshold. 

"Oh, " said Sally, with an impertinent assumption of remedying anoversight, "good night, I'm sure!"

Instead of audible reply, the woman shut the door and turned back tothe middle of the room. 

"I don't wish to be unjust, " she said quietly. 

"I am quick-tempered, just as you are, but I always try to be fair inthe end. Perhaps I was unpleasant and too exacting just now; but, youmust admit, I really know little or nothing about you, and have everyright to watch you closely. "

She paused, as if expecting an answer; but before Sally could overcomeher astonishment she resumed in the same level, reasonable tone:

"I was greatly distressed when I came here and found you had gone outat this hour of the night: certainly, you must allow, a queerproceeding on the part of a young woman in your position. Andwhen you come back, after a long talk with a strange man in theshelter of a hedge, and refuse to give an account of yourself, Iconfess you exasperated me. At the same time, accidents do happen; andit's true you have rights of privacy that even I must respect--to whomyou owe a great deal, you must admit. And now I think I've gone as fartoward making amends as even you could ask. "

Astonishment and incredulity yielded to penitence. Sally sat up with alittle gesture of contrition and appeal--an outflung hand instantlywithdrawn; this was not a woman whose susceptibilities were to betouched by such means; even now, beneath her ostensible generosity, one divined a nature cold and little placable. 

Then, with a remorseful cry, "Oh, I'm sorry!" the girl yielded to thetension of overwrought nerves and broke down completely, crushed, confounded, shaken by spasms of silent sobbing. 

In the course of this she was conscious of the touch of a hand on hershoulder; no more than that. And when she had spent herself in tearsand grew more calm, it was to find Mrs. Standish seated opposite herand waiting patiently; at all events with a fair imitation of thatvirtue. 

"Please, " Sally begged between gulps, "please forgive me. I'm soexcited and unstrung--"

"I quite understand. There--compose yourself. "

"If you still wish me to--if you insist--of course I'll tell you--"

"No. " It cost the other woman an effort of renunciation, but she wassteadfast to her secret purpose. "Forget that. It doesn't matter. Ihad no right to ask, and really do not care to know. But if you'requite able to pay attention, I'd like to consult with you--about whatgot me out of bed and brought me here this morning. "

"I don't understand. "

"Of course you don't. But it has been on my nerves all evening, untilI felt as if I must talk to somebody--and you are the only one I cantrust. "

Sally stared in a state of dumb bewilderment that eclipsed all she hadexperienced before. Truly the world was topsyturvy this madcap night!What under the moon now?

"You know how worried I've been about that affair in town. Men are soinconsiderate; simply because he knew how things were going--and Ipresumed they must have been going well--Walter left me without a wordtill this evening. Then he telegraphed he'd be here to-morrowafternoon and that everything was all right; but that he is bringingwith him one of the adjusters for the burglar-insurance people--adetective, I presume, the man is, really--and I'll have to answer somequestions before we can collect the money to cover my loss. "

"A detective!"

"Adjuster is a much more pleasant name. And I know it's merely amatter of formality, and I oughtn't to be silly about it, but I can'thelp it. I've been on edge ever since, fretting for fear somethingwould come out about that case that Walter did bring me from the safe, you remember. If that were found--as it might be, if they ask me toproduce what jewelry I have with me--well, I simply can't think whatto do. "

"Why not hide the case?"

"That's just it. But where? I can't imagine. Of course I can't verywell smuggle it out of the house myself. So I thought perhaps you . . . At any rate, I've brought it to you. "

"To me?"

"Don't be alarmed. Nobody will ever suspect you of any connectionwhatever with the affair. It'll be perfectly safe here, in yourkeeping, until you find a way to dispose of it. To-morrow night, forinstance, as soon as it's dark, you might take it down to the shore, put a stone in it, and throw it out into the water. Or bury it in thesand. Anything. Nobody will pay any attention if you excuse yourselfto go to your room or out to the terrace for half an hour. ButI--well, you must see. I've hidden the case under your pillow. You mayfind some better place for it--but then you haven't a maid tohoodwink. I declare it has nearly driven me mad, these last few days, trying to keep the thing out of Ellen's sight. She's such a nosy, prying creature. "

Mrs. Standish rose. "You will do this for me, won't you? I was sure Icould depend on you. And--let us forget our little misunderstanding. I've forgotten it already. "

She had left the room before Sally could formulate reasonableprotest--reasonable, that is, remembering her burden of obligation tothis woman. 

It was an hour later before she at length settled upon satisfactoryconcealment for the incriminating jewel-case--in the recess behind abureau-drawer, where it fitted precisely in the wrappings she did nottrouble to remove. 

In the grey twilight of the dawn at last, she flung herself upon thebed--and fell instantly asleep. 

CHAPTER XI

THE THIRD DEGREE

In the sequel to that night of mischief and misadventure Sarah Manvershad sound reason to be thankful for the resilient youth which stillanimated her body. But of course she wasn't; youth will ever misprizetill it must mourn its blessings. 

Yet by virtue of that inestimable attribute alone was she able to dowith only four hours' sleep (when Adele Standish, for example, neededeight, and then was seedy) and be the first of the household to appearfor breakfast--clear of eye and fresh of colour, with a countenance asserene as her temper and a temper as normal as her appetite. 

As for this last, she made an excellent breakfast, alone in thesun-bright dining-room. And if at times, as she sat and munched, herlook was pensive and remote, this was due less to misgivings than tomystification. 

The quarrel and reconciliation with Mrs. Standish had cleared theatmosphere of their relations; henceforward there could be no moremisunderstanding; they hated each other heartily; neitherentertained any illusion as to that; but their interests were too farinterdependent to license any play of private feeling. Sally wanted tostay on at Gosnold House, and Mrs. Standish was resigned; Mrs. Standish wanted her insurance money, and Sally would help her getit--by keeping quiet. Sally might be dealt with severely by the law ifMrs. Standish said the word, and Mrs. Standish, if Sally spoke, wouldsuffer not only in her pocketbook, but in the graces of her aunt. 

But Sally was not without compunction in respect to the deceptionpractised on her still prospective employer. It wasn't possible toknow Mrs. Gosnold and not like her; if that personality enforcedrespect, it was a lodestone for affection, and Sally meant with allher heart to serve faithfully and well; if she was to have her way, neither would know a single regret because of their association untiltime and chance conspired to sunder it. 

Then, too, sleep had appreciably changed the complexion of her mindtoward the Lyttleton episode. She was not yet able to recall thatchapter of infatuation without a cringe of shame; but that would passwith time, and the experience had not been without a value alreadyapparent. For even as she had said to him, she was cured--and morethan cured, she was instructed; she was not only betteracquainted with herself, but had learned to read the Lyttletontemperament too well ever to require repetition of the lesson. If shehad played the fatuous moth, she had come through cheaply, with wingsnot even singed; for what she had taken for flame had proved to be nomore than cheapest incandescence. She felt so sure of all this thatshe could even contemplate the affair with some inklings of theamusement that it would yet afford her. And she was fixed to make thisthe key of her attitude toward the man in all such future intercourseas was unavoidable. 

But Trego . . . 

Trego was a horse of another colour altogether. The very name of Tregowas hateful in her hearing. There was little she would not willinglyhave done, however unjust and unfair, to avoid further communicationswith this animal of a Trego. 

And yet, as she had learned, the term of his stay at Gosnold House hadstill another week to run, and he was in some way a favourite andintimate of Mrs. Gosnold, apt frequently to figure as her guest; andsince this was so, and Sally herself bade fair (barring accidents) toprove a fixture in the household, it seemed inevitable that they mustbe often thrown together. So she must at all costs school herself totreat him civilly--at least without overt animosity. 

She could imagine no task more difficult or distasteful; short offorfeiting her place in this new sphere, she would have paid almostany price for remission of that duty. 

The irony of life seemed a bitter draft. Granting it had beenrequisite to some strange design of fate, in its inscrutable vagary, that several persons should suffer a night of broken rest at GosnoldHouse, why must they have been those four and none other--Sally, AdeleStandish, Lyttleton, Trego? Especially Trego! Why that one? Palpablebonds of mutual interest linked the three first named; their commonaffliction might conceivably have been ascribable to subtlepsychological affinity. But Trego was well outside the triangle, evenas perceptibly out of sympathy with a majority of Mrs. Gosnold'sguests. 

Mrs. Standish was studious in her avoidance of him without appearanceof open slight. His nature and Lyttleton's were essentiallyantagonistic. Sally's animus had been well defined from the verybeginning, when she had resented his being both physically andtemperamentally so completely out of the picture of that existence towhich she aspired. 

But reconnaissance up that dark alley demonstrated it an indisputableimpasse and Sally gave it up, reserving the grievance for tendernursing (she had a very human weakness for selected wrongs) andturned her attention to the puzzle involving Lyttleton's business onthe beach at 2 A. M. And the signals exchanged between yacht andwindow. 

Nor did she make much headway in this quarter. Instinct indicated adelicate harmony between those events and the formless shadow to whichSally had all along been sensitive, of something equivocal in thepretensions of Mrs. Standish. But that clue played will-o'-the-wispwith her fancy, leading it ever farther astray in a bottomless bog ofblack bewilderment. 

None the less, she had just succeeded in establishing to her ownsatisfaction the probability that her sponsor had been, if not activein, at least acquainted with the business of the signals--reasoningshrewdly upon that lady's high-handed treatment of Sally's insinuationas inconsequential--when Mr. Trego elected to appear for breakfast. 

That unhappy young man had been more wise if he had not taken it forgranted that nine o'clock would be too early for Sally as well as foreverybody else who didn't make breakfast in bed a habit; and a morediplomatic person would have been at pains to prepare himself againstthat inevitable rencontre with a young woman of exacerbatedsensibilities. Nothing could have been more surely predestined toghastly failure than his cheerful assumption of a completeunderstanding, with the hint implicit that, having done Sally asignal service, he was willing to let bygones be bygones and take astacit a sense of obligation not easy for her to express. 

"Hel-lo!" he saluted the charming vision of her with undisguisedpleasure and surprise. "You down already? Why, I made sure I had atleast two hours' lead of the field. "

"Yes, " Sally agreed quietly; "I am early, I presume. "

"Want to be careful, " Trego cautioned; "it's hardly the thing, thisearly rising, you know; it's not really clawss; it isn't done. "

Sally said nothing. It was safer not to. And cheerfully unaware of herself-restraint, Trego armed himself with a plate and foraged at theside-table, with its array of silver-hooded hot-water dishes. 

"Been for a swim, " he volunteered with a thrill of coarse creaturesatisfaction in his tone. "Wonderful water along this coast--not toowarm, like the Jersey beaches--to my taste, anyway, and not tooall-fired cold, as it generally is north of the Cape, but just right. Like bathing in champagne properly chilled. No such pick-me-up in theworld as a dip in the cool of the morning. You should have tried it. "

"I dare say, " said Sally briefly, and was very glad she hadn't. "Butthat dreadfully long climb up from the beach--" she amended, feeling it obligatory upon her not to seem too short of civility. 

"You don't mind that when you come to it after a swim, " Tregodeclared. "It's only in anticipation, when you're snug between sheetsand debating the rival claims of the distant beach and your handybathtub; then, I grant you, the climb up the cliff weighs heavily inthe scale of disadvantages. "

He drew out the chair adjoining Sally's and attacked the half of aniced canteloup, but after the first mouthful put down his spoon. 

"Sugar, please, " he said with a deprecatory grimace, indicating thebowl just beyond the girl's place. "I know I ought to go in for saltif I want to come through as a regular guy; but if you won't tell onme, I'm going to enjoy this melon in my own primitive Western way. Thanks. "

He committed the unpardonable deed with a liberal hand. "Frightfullyweird, you know, " he mimicked with a chuckle, adding: "It takes therude, untutored mind of a barbarian to be satisfied with sweetening athing with sweetness instead of bitterness, doesn't it'?"

"But I prefer salt myself, " said the girl; "it brings out theflavour. "

She concluded her defence in some confusion due to Trego's practicallysynchronous utterance of her identical phrase: "it brings out theflavour. " Then she realised that he had deliberately trapped herand was meanly laughing in the triumph of his low cunning. And she hadto laugh, too, to save her face; but it was an empty laugh andaccompanied by a flush that might have warned the man had he not toosoon returned attention to his melon. 

"Never fails, " he remarked. "Though, of course, it isn't safe to workit on anybody in this outfit--not, at least, unless you're prettysure there's a trace of human humour in the make-up of the specimen. I'm making a collection of those stereotypes; it helps a lot. Otable-talk! where is thy sting--when a fellow knows all the answers?"

He rose, set aside the shell of the maltreated melon, and returnedwith his plunder from the hot-water dishes, to find Sally on the pointof leaving. 

"Not going?" he protested more soberly. "Don't tell me I offended you, catching you up like that!"

"How absurd!" the infuriated girl replied, smiling falsely. "But--"

"Then, if you've nothing pressing on, keep me company for a little. Iwant to ask your advice. I'm puzzled. Maybe you can suggestsomething. "

She couldn't well go, then, without betraying umbrage, so she settledherself with a resigned temper, and for want of a better leadcontented herself with a conversational stop-gap--"Puzzled?"--spokenin an encouraging tone. 

"Yes. Something I noticed this morning. But it weaves into lastnight--maybe. Maybe not. I'm a slow thinker when it comes to puzzles. "

He filled a cup with coffee from the shining urn and resumed hischair. 

"You see . . . " Some intimation of his gaucherie made him stumble. "Ofcourse, " he went on, semi-apologetic, "you understand that I'm goingon the assumption that you're as human as I am. "

"Thank you, " said Sally sweetly. 

"Human enough, " he explained, "not to think I'm a savage because I'vereminded you of last night. "

"I see no reason--" she began with dignity. 

"And there isn't any, " he argued heartily. "We're both old enough tobehave like grown-ups. Only, a fellow never can tell where he standswith most of these festive dames. I've been lorgnetted until I'mscared to open my mouth. But with you--well, it's like meetingsomebody from home to talk to you. "

"But the puzzle?" she reminded him with more patience than he knew. 

"Oh, yes. I was going to say when I side-tracked myself: what got meup was Lyttleton. He has the room next mine, you know. I'd just turnedout my bedside light--been reading, you understand--when I heard hisdoor open very gently and somebody go pussy-footing down thehall. And for some reason that kept me awake--because it was none ofmy business, I guess--waiting for him to come back and wondering whatin thunder took him out on the prowl like that. And when I hadwondered myself wide awake I got up and dressed--thought I'd take awalk, too, since the night was so fine. I honestly had no idea offollowing him--that was all an accident, my butting in the way I did. "

Sudden perception of a footing upon ground properly taboo even toangels caused the man to flush brick-red. His eyes sought Sally's inhonest consternation. 

"Hope you don't mind, " he mumbled. 

"Please go on, " she said, conscious of the heat in her own cheeks, andholding him in an esteem proportionately more poisonous. 

"Well. About this morning: As I say, I went down to the beach for adip. You know how that beach is--about a twelve-foot breadth of sandfrom the bottom of the cliff when the tide's high, with about twentyfeet more when it's low. So foot-prints show until the weather rubsthem out--takes a tolerable storm, as a rule. Below high-water markit's different; the sand is covered up and smoothed out twice a day. Well, then, just below high-water mark--that is, about five feet belowit, or at quarter-tide mark--I noticed the print of a rowboat'sbows on the sand. It had landed there and waited a while--drawn uponly part way out of the water--about three o'clock this morning. Twomen had got out; one waited with the boat, the other went up towardthe foot of the steps and mixed his footprints up with all the others. I don't know what for and can't imagine; but that's what happened, andpresently he turned round and went back to the boat, and the two ofthem shoved her off again--trusting, I guess, to the tide to cover upthe signs of their landing. 

"Why they should want to be secret about it, God only knows; but ifthey didn't, why three o'clock? It's all private beach along here, andwhereas I believe there are no property rights below high-water mark, and anybody has a right to land anywhere in an emergency--where wasthe emergency? There was no gale last night, and if there had been, you'd think distressed mariners would have sense enough to come ashorefarther along, toward the village, where they could find shelter--andall that. The more I think about it, the funnier it looks to me. "

He finished his breakfast and his statement at the same time, pushedback his chair, and produced a cigarette-case. 

"You don't mind? Thanks. Now what do you think?"

Sally shook her head and looked blank. "Three o'clock? How canyou be so sure about that?" she inquired obliquely. 

"Because it's high tide twice a day--approximately every twelve hours. I looked up a tide-table in the hall out there and found it was highat one eleven this morning and low at seven thirty-five--just aboutan hour turned when I had my swim, the water-line then about twelvefeet short of the marks of the boat. It'll be high again about oneforty-eight this afternoon--at least noon before water begins to washover those marks. "

He puffed voluminously. "If there was any shenanigan afoot last night, a couple of thick-heads footed it--that is, if they cared whether theyleft any clues or not. "

Constrained to fill in his expectant pause, she made shift with a "Howvery odd!" that was a triumph of naturalness. 

"Isn't it?" he agreed. "Now what do you make of it?"

"Nothing, " she replied truthfully, for she was entirely at a loss tofit this new development into the adventures of Lyttleton and thelighted window--and make sense of it. "I can't imagine--"

"What I want to know is this, " Trego propounded cunningly: "hadLyttleton anything to do with it?" She had prepared for that question, had settled her answer beforehand; even with any real reason tosuspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would nothave betrayed him to this man--if to anybody. 

"I'm sure I can't say. "

"Well--it's funny, anyhow. Guess we better not say anything about it. After all, it's no concern of ours. "

She couldn't refrain from the question: "But why should you thinkhe--?"

"Well, what _was_ he doing all that time--?"

He checked and stammered with embarrassment. "I beg your pardon!"

"You needn't. He wasn't--with me--all that time. "

The situation grown intolerable, Sally got up suddenly and without aword of excuse took her scarlet cheeks out of the dining-room and backto her bedchamber. 

On the dot of their standing appointment she found Mrs. Gosnoldunconsciously, perhaps, but none the less strikingly posed in thegolden glow of her boudoir window for the portrait of a lady ofquality on fatigue duty--very much at her ease in a lavender-silkmorning gown and stretched out in a _chaise longue_, a tray withfruit, coffee and rolls on her left dividing attention with a sheaf ofmorning notes on the other side and the portable writing-case on herknees. 

Acknowledging Sally's appearance with a pleasant if slightlyabstracted smile, she murmured: "Oh, is it you, Miss Manwaring? Sitdown, please. Half a minute . . . "

On the _qui vive_ for any indication that Mrs. Standish had been falseto her word or Mrs. Gosnold informed through any other channel of thesecret history of that night and consequently inclined to hold hersecretary in distrust, Sally detected nothing in the other's manner toadd to her uneasiness. To the contrary, in fact. She sat and watchedin admiration, and thought that she had never known a woman betterpoised, more serenely mistress of herself and of the technique oflife. If Mrs. Gosnold nursed a secret sorrow, anxiety, or grievance, the world would never learn of it through any flaw in the armour ofher self-possession. 

She wrought busily with a fountain pen for little longer than thestipulated period of delay, then addressed and sealed a note andlooked up again with her amiable, shrewd smile. 

"Good morning!" she laughed, quite as if she had not till thenrecognised Sally's presence. "You've slept well, I trust?"

Sally did not hesitate perceptibly; the honest impulse prevailed. Secretly she was determined to tell no more major lies, though theheavens fell--only such minor fibs as are necessary to lubricate themachinery of society. She would do her best, of course, topreserve the hateful truth that had been so cunningly covered up bythe lies of Mrs. Standish's first invention; but she would do thatbest, if possible, more by keeping silence than by coining anduttering fresh falsehoods. 

"Not so well last night, " she confessed. "I don't know what was thematter with me, but somehow I didn't seem even to want to sleep. "

"I know, " Mrs. Gosnold nodded wisely. "I'm not yet old enough to haveforgotten these midsummer moonlight nights of ours. When I was a girland being courted, from this very house, I know I used to wait untileverybody had gone to bed and creep out and wander for hours . . . "

Her pause invited confidences. And momentarily Sally's heart thumpedlike a trip-hammer. Did she, then, either know or guess?

"I did that last night, " she responded; "but I hadn't your excuse. "

"You mean, you're not being courted? Don't be impatient. Once to everywoman--once too often to most. And it's well to take one's timenowadays. Perhaps it's a sign of age, and I shouldn't own it, but itdoes seem to me that the young men of to-day are an uncommonly godlesscrew. I should be sorry to have you make a mistake . . . "

She contented herself with that much warning and no more; butSally knew their thoughts were one, focused upon a singular though byno means strange example of the young men of the present day. 

"I think, " her employer pursued, with a look excusing the transientkeenness of her scrutiny, "our Island air agrees with you. If you havehad one poor night, all the same you're quite another girl than theone who came here--was it only four days ago? I hope you're quitecomfortable. "

"Oh, yes, indeed. "

"And would you care to stay on?"

"With all my heart!"

"I see no reason why you shouldn't. I like you very well; you're quickand willing--and you humour my weakness for the respect of myassociates. I don't ask for their dependence. If you like, we'll sayyour engagement begins to-day, the first of the week. "

"You are very kind. "

"I'm very selfish. I like intelligence, prettiness, and youth--musthave them at any cost! So that's understood. Of course, there arecertain questions to be settled, arrangements to be made. For example, I assume responsibility for your losses at bridge, because playingwhen I wish you to is one of your duties. But these matters adjustthemselves as they come up from time to time. "

"Thank you, " said Sally in a tone that, though little more than awhisper, was more eloquent of her gratitude than the mere phrase couldpossibly have been. 

"So now I shall stop calling you Miss Manwaring. "

"Please do. "

"It's much too formal, considering I'm old enough to be your mother. "

"Oh, no!" Sally protested involuntarily. "That isn't possible. "

"I'll not see fifty-five again, " Mrs. Gosnold announced. "But that's aboudoir secret. "

"I'll never--"

"And a secret of Polichinelle besides, " the other laughed; "everybodyI know or care a snap for knows it. At the same time, no woman caresto have her age discussed, even if it is public property and she quiteold enough to be beyond such vanity. No matter; I'm going to call youSara, if you've no objection. "

"Why not Sally?" the girl suggested tentatively. "That's my name--Imean, what I'm accustomed to. "

"Thank you; I like it even better, " Mrs. Gosnold affirmed. "I'mconservative enough to favour old-time names. My own, for instance, Abigail, pleases me immensely, though I seldom meet a young womanthese days who can hear it without looking either incredulous oras though she doubted the sanity of my sponsors in baptism. "

She stayed the obvious reply with an indulgent toss of a hand stillfair. 

"Now to work. I've mapped out a busy morning for you. To begin with, here are a dozen or so notes to deliver. You may take thedog-cart--no, to save time, one of the motors. We must give these goodpeople as much time as possible, considering it's a spur-of-the-momentaffair. That is why, you understand, there are so fewinvitations--because I'd no time to write and post a number. But eachof these is a bid to some friend with a houseful of people to come andbring all her guests. 

"Oh!" she laughed, catching the look of puzzlement on the girl's face, "I haven't told you what it is. Well, my dear, it's an old woman'swhim. Every so often I break loose this way and keep my memory greenas one who, in her day, never entertained but in some unique fashion. I was once famous for that sort of thing, but of late years I haven'texerted myself except when bored to extinction by the deadlycommonplace amusements most people offer us. 

"For some time I've had this in mind, and everything prepared; youmay, if you like, call it a spontaneous masquerade by moonlight. Halfthe fun of such affairs comes of the last-moment, makeshiftcostumes; if you give people much time to think them up it is always astiff and frigid function. Moreover, it demands a perfect night--andwe can't count on our Island weather twenty-four hours in advance. Butto-day is perfect, and to-night will be fair with the moon at itsfull. You may dance on the veranda or make love on the terrace, justas you please, from ten o'clock till three--or later. Supper will beserved from midnight on. At one we shall unmask. 

"As I say, all preparations had been made, weather permitting; I hadmerely to telephone the caterers, electricians, and musicians, andscribble these invitations. I'd advise you to arrange your day toinclude a good long nap before dinner, for you'll be up till all hoursvery likely. I fancy I can promise you some fun. "

Mrs. Gosnold ceased upon a note of mischievous enjoyment inanticipation that would have suited a girl of sixteen, then analysedthe trouble behind Sally's perturbed countenance. 

"As for your costume, you're not to give it a thought! I have arrangedfor it to be brought to your room at half past nine, and I pledge youmy word you'll find it becoming. I have only two requests to make ofyou: that you refrain from unmasking or admitting your identity untilone o'clock, and that if you recognise me, you hold your tongue. Is it a bargain?"

"You're so good to me, " said Sally simply, "I can't think how to thankyou. "

"Leave that, too, to me. It's quite possible I may suggest a way. "Mrs. Gosnold smiled curiously as at a thought reserved. "Now runalong--order the car and put on your prettiest hat. But a moment!"

She illustrated the process of taking thought by puckering her browsand clipping her chin between a thumb and forefinger. 

"Let me see. Have I remembered everybody?" She conned, half aloud, alist of names. "But no! What an oversight! I should never haveforgiven myself--or have been forgiven. And my fountain pen needsrefilling. No"--as Sally offered to take the pen--"sit there at thedesk and write at my dictation. I will sign it. "

Obediently Sally took her place at the escritoire, arranged a sheet ofthe monogrammed note-paper used by Mrs. Gosnold for correspondencewith personal friends (as distinguished from the formal letter-head ofGosnold House, with its bristling array of telephone numbers andtelegraph, post-office, railroad and steamboat addresses), dipped apen, and waited with a mind preoccupied by visions of the night tocome. Her first ball! Her first real function in Society!

"My dear friend, " Mrs. Gosnold enunciated deliberately in acolourless, placid voice. "(Colon, dash, paragraph) It was only latelast night, and then by merest chance, I learned you had come to theisland yesterday instead of sailing last week, in accordance with yourannounced intention (period). So I cannot decently begin by beratingyou (dash) as I should, had you been here twenty-four hours withoutpersonally letting me know (period). "

A pause. Sally dreamed a beautiful dream of a crinoline costume, beflowered and beflounced, such as Vogue had lately pictured as aforecast of autumn fashions, an iridescent bubble of a dream shatteredby the query: "Where was I, please?"

"'Letting me know, '" she quoted absently. 

"Oh, yes. (Paragraph. ) I hope with all my heart your change of planswas not brought about by any untoward accident (semicolon); butItaly's loss is the island's gain (semicolon); and I am lookingforward with the keenest pleasure to seeing you again (period, paragraph). May I hope that it will be not later than to-night (pointof interrogation)? I have arranged an impromptu masquerade bymoonlight on the terrace (period). It should be a pretty sight(period). From ten o'clock till any time you like (dash) masks untilone (period). Do come and help make the evening a happy one for me(period). "

Another contemplative pause. But this time Sally did not dream. Shesat quite still in speculative wonder, troubled with a vague alarm asdisturbing as the sound of distant thunder in the evening, of anAugust day. 

"Cue, please?"

The girl replied in a low tone: "'Evening a happy one'--"

"Yes. Add: affectionately yours--or wait! Have you written--?"

"'Affectionately yours'--yes. "

"No matter; leave a space for my signature, and add this: P. S. Youwill be glad to see, no doubt, that your letter to Adele has bornefruit (period). Miss Manwaring does splendidly as an amanuensis(period). Your judgment was always trustworthy (period). And addressthe envelope, of course, to Mrs. Cornwallis English. She is stopping, I hear, with the Lorimers at Bleak House--the grey stone house on thehill at the end of West Harbor Drive. "

After a time Mrs. Gosnold said almost sharply: "Well, Miss Manwaring!You have little time to waste. Bring me the note, please, and a pen. "

With a gesture of despair the girl twisted in her chair and showed thewoman a stricken face. 

"Are you sure--?" she stammered. 

"Yes?" Mrs. Gosnold prompted with an accent of surprise. "What is it, Sally?"

The girl gulped hard, and mechanically put a hand to her throat, rising as she spoke. 

"Are you sure Mrs. English is on the Island?"

"What of it? Why, I presumed you would be glad of the opportunity tothank her for that letter of--"

"There was no letter!"

"I beg pardon?" Mrs. Gosnold opened wide her eyes. 

"I say, " Sally faltered, yet with determination, "there was no letter. Mrs. Standish--that is--we both lied to you. I don't know Mrs. English; I never spoke a word to her in all my life. I didn't take anyletter to Mrs. Standish. That was a story manufactured out of wholecloth to account for me--get me this position here. "

"Oh, yes, " Mrs. Gosnold assented coolly. "I felt quite sure of that inthe beginning. You never could believe a word Adele said from the timeshe was able to talk. Even if the truth would have served as well andwith less trouble, she was sure to disfigure it beyond identification. And Walter's just as bad. But you, my dear, will never make a goodliar; the first words we spoke together I saw your eyes wince, andknew you were tormented by something on your conscience. Moreover, thelast person Edna English would send anyone with a letter ofrecommendation to is my niece, who has not yet been proved guiltyof one unselfish act. So I thought I'd test the story. Now youmay tear up that note--Mrs. English is in Italy this very day, to thebest of my belief--and tell me what it's all about. "

CHAPTER XII

MACHIAVELLIAN

Within the span of an exceedingly bad quarter of an hour for Sally thecat was completely out of the bag, the fat as irretrievably in thefire; Sally was out of breath and in tears of penitence and despair;Mrs. Gosnold was out of her chair, thoughtfully pacing to and fro, andin full possession of all facts materially bearing upon thetranslation of S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions into S. Manwaring ofthe Golden Destiny. 

No vital detail had escaped her penetrating probe; she proved herselfpast mistress in the art of cross-examination, and found in Sally awilling witness. 

For the latter, however, it had seemed less giving of testimony than ahysteric confessional. She had wrung her conscience dry, deriving fromthe act a sort of awful joy mitigated by the one regret: that she hadnot more to confess, that the mystery of her favouring must remain amystery which, with all the good-will in the world, no word of herscould elucidate. 

As for the secret history of last night's dark transactions, however, that was not altogether hers to disclose. The interests and affairs ofothers were involved, she dared not guess how disastrously; she wasonly sensitive to the feeling that something black and foul andhideous skulked behind that shut door. Heaven forfend that hers shouldbe the hand to open it and let ruin loose upon this pleasant world ofGosnold House!

It seemed incumbent upon her to explain that Mrs. Standish had broughtto her room a jewel-case for Sally to hide or otherwise dispose of. Beyond this she feared to go. She would not mention Lyttleton or Tregoor the yacht, or the window of the signals. 

In the end, stopping tears and sobs as best she might, she waitedlistlessly her sentence of expulsion. Now nothing mattered; if herheart was lighter, her future was darker; and presently the nobodythat she was would return into that drab nowhere whence some ill windof chance had wafted her. 

"Don't be a fool!" Mrs. Gosnold counselled her abruptly with unwontedbrusqueness. "Do you really think I'm capable of baiting a trap foryou with fair words and flattery for the sheer, inhuman pleasure ofseeing you suffer until I choose to set you adrift? See how you'veupset me already; metaphor is never safe in a woman's hands, butI'm seldom as bad as all that!"

Sally sniffed abjectly. "I'm willing to do anything . . . "

"You've done enough. Be content. If it were not for you and whatyou've been able to tell me, I'd . . . Well, no matter; I don't knowwhat I'd do. As it is . . . Look here!"

She paused in front of Sally, dropped one hand kindly on the girl'sshoulder, with the other lifted her chin, exploring her tear-wet eyeswith a gaze at once charitable and discriminating. 

"I've taken a fancy to you, if you are a bit of an idiot. And Ibelieve implicitly every word you've uttered. Perhaps I oughtn't to, and I probably wouldn't, if your account of yourself didn't chime soexactly with what I know about my dutiful niece and nephew. But, yousee, I do know them, and very well--and that they're quite capable ofall you say, and more to boot. Adele Standish in especial I know fartoo well to believe for an instant she'd burden herself withbenevolent intentions toward another woman without expecting to reapsome wildly inadequate reward. That's all that bothers me. I can'tunderstand what they wanted with you. But I'm not going to let mymystification lose me the services of a promising amanuensis--not inthese days, when intelligence is scarce and far to seek. "

"Do you mean I'm to stay?" Sally gasped incredulously. 

"Most assuredly I mean you're to stay. Why not? You're modest andwell-mannered, and you've got too much sense to try again to pull woolover my eyes, even if you're wicked enough to want to, which I don'tbelieve. No; as far as you're concerned, your position here is farmore firmly established now than an hour ago, when everything wasagainst my liking you--in spite of the fact that I did--especiallyyour loyalty to those hopeless ingrates!"

She fumed in silence for a moment. "I could have forgiven almostanything--but this! The insolence of it! To dare picture me to you--oranybody--as a silly old fool of a woman without the wit to protectherself from being fleeced by a gang of adventurers. My friends!" shebroke off with a snort of superindignation. "My guests here a set ofrogues and vagabonds--and worse!"

She flopped into her chair with a helpless "Oh dear!" and began tolaugh. 

"It's too ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "If it ever got out, I'd almostbe ashamed to show my face in public again. Promise you'll neverbreathe a syllable--"

"Oh, I promise--I do promise!" Sally protested fervently. "But, Mrs. Gosnold . . . "

"Well, what now?"

"I suppose, " said Sally, "the only way to show my gratitude is byserving you faithfully--"

"You might, " the elder woman interposed in a quizzical turn, "spareme, if you can, a little affection, since it seems I've lost that ofmy sister's children, together with their respect. "

"I don't think you'll ever complain for want of that, " Sally told hervery seriously. "But can you afford to run the risk of the policecoming here to find Sarah Manvers, who disappeared last week afterbreaking into a house--burglarising it--leaving her discarded clothingbehind her for one positive clue--"

"You must make your mind easy as to that; unless I'm vastly mistaken, no police will ever look for you in Gosnold House; if any did, theywouldn't be admitted; and if by any chance they did happen to get in, they wouldn't find Sarah Manvers. Please understand, you're to remainSara Manwaring for some time to come--for good, if I think best. Don'timagine I'm going to permit you to resume your right name and spoileverything. I hope I make myself clear. "

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Gosnold!"

"And--attend to me--you're not to give Adele--or Walter, either, whenhe gets here, any reason to suspect you've confided in me. I wisheverything to go on precisely as it has been going--so far as theycan see. Avoid them as much as possible; when it isn't possible, give them a dose of their own medicine if necessary--I mean, lie. There's an explosion coming, but I don't wish it to happen until I'msure who and what are going to be blown sky-high, and I am quiteprepared to stand by and enjoy the fireworks. Meantime, don't letanybody frighten you; no matter how serious matters may seem or berepresented to you, rely implicitly on me. And whatever is said to youthat seems of any consequence--or if you should see anything--findsome way to report quickly to me. Now what did you say you did withthat jewel-case Adele gave you?"

Sally repeated her account of its hiding-place. 

"You didn't unwrap it, you say. Well and good!" Mrs. Gosnold noddedintently. "Then don't; leave it as it is, and some time to-day, if Ican manage without being observed, I'll drop into your room and have alook at the box myself. But you are on no consideration whatever totouch it until I give you leave. "

"I understand. "

"If Adele and Walter want to know what you've done with it, tell themthe truth--you've done nothing. Say you've not yet found a good chanceto. Tell them where it is, but assure them it's perfectly safe there. "

"Yes, Mrs. Gosnold. "

Momentarily the older woman was lost in a reverie of semimaliciouscast, to judge by the smile that faintly shadowed the firm lines ofher handsome face. 

"A surprise patty . . . " she observed obscurely. 

Of a sudden, with a sort of snap, she roused herself back to moreimmediate issues. "Oh, come! the morning almost gone already andnothing accomplished! Off with you! But before you go, do, forgoodness' sake, attend to your eyes; if some one were to see you goingthrough the halls the way you are--it might be ruinous. Bathe themwith cold water in the bath-room there--and you'll find plenty ofpowder and stuff on my dressing-table. "

And while Sally hastened to profit by this advice, the other pursued:"You should school yourself never to cry, my girl. You're toosensitive and emotional by half. If you go on this way, at the leastexcuse--great Heavens! what a moist married life you'll lead! Now letme look at you. That's much better. You'll do very well--if onlyyou've wit enough not to worry--to trust me, whatever the emergency. Now, please, get about my errands. And when you come back, tell Thomasto let me know. If I need you during the day I'll send for you. "

As it happened, she didn't send for Sally before nightfall; butshe kept her busy with commissions delivered by word of mouth--sobusy, perhaps considerately, that the girl found little time to wastein futile fretting, but was ever conscious, when now and again herthoughts did inevitably revert to the status of her personal affairs, of contentment crooning in her heart like the soft refrain of somesweet old song. 

Her social education had made a gigantic forward stride with hersurprising discovery that confession is good for the soul, thathonesty in all things is not only expedient but wholesome. If materialadvantage had accrued unto her through that act of desperate honesty, if she basked all this day long in the assurance of immunity from theconsequences of her folly and imprudence, it was less with thearrogance of Fortune's favourite daughter than with the humility ofone to whom life had measured out benefactions of which she wasconsciously undeserving. The assertion that the world owed her aliving was forgotten, and if recalled, would have been revised to thesense that she owed the world the duty of honourable and conscientiousliving. If her temper was tolerably exalted, it was well chastened toboot. 

Thanks to the tardy advertisement of the fete, the avidity of a peopleever seeking some new thing, and the fame of Abigail Gosnold as anentertainer of eccentric genius, that day could hardly be saidto wane; rather, it waxed to its close in an atmosphere of electricexcitement steadily cumulative. The colony droned like some hugedynamo with the rumour of secret preparation against the night. Otherthan servants scurrying to and fro on pressing but mysterious errands, few folk were visible in the afternoon; the drives and beaches; thelawns, terraces, courts, gardens, verandas and casinos were one andall deserted. 

At Gosnold House, below-stairs, in kitchens and servants' halls, andall about the grounds as well, a multitude of work-people swarmed likean invading army of ants. Astonishing feats of preparation wereconsummated as if by legerdemain. And though the routine of thehousehold proceeded marvellously without apparent hitch or friction, luncheon and dinner degenerated into affairs of emptiest formality. Atthe latter, indeed, Mrs. Gosnold presided over an oddly balancedboard; three-fourths of those present were men--fully half thefeminine guests dining from trays in their rooms or else abstainingaltogether in order that not one precious moment might be lost to thecreation of their improvised disguises. And the talk at table wassingularly disconnected, with an average of interest uncommonly low. People were obviously saving themselves up. There was no lingeringover tobacco; the last course served, the guests dispersed inall haste compatible with decency. 

It was at this meal that Sally got her first glimpse of Savage sincehis arrival in the course of the afternoon. She had been far too busyto keep watch and unable to invent any plausible excuse for inquiringafter him, but the thought of his return had never been far out ofmind. However busy, she had been unable to dismiss entirely theconsideration that Savage was bringing the first authentic news ofwhatever activities the police might have inaugurated in connectionwith the burglary and whatever their progress in pursuit of the cluefurnished by the garments discarded in the bath-room. And all thereassurances of Mrs. Gosnold were impotent to counteract apprehensionsfostered by such reflections. 

But there was the length and the width of the table between them. Shehad to be content with all that Savage found chance to accord her--abow, a smile, and a glance down his nose significant of unspeakableintelligence. 

She thought he looked a bit pale and worried and betrayed morenervousness than was natural in the man as she had come to know him. 

Whether or not he had been accompanied by the threatened insuranceadjuster (or detective!) she was unable to surmise; notwithstandingseveral strange faces in the number at table, she was inclined tobelieve that a person of such character would have been lodgedsomewhere in the village which served as the island's main port ofentry, rather than brought to Gosnold House--already crowded withguests. 

As soon as the company rose Savage manoeuvred to the side of the girl, detaining her long enough to convey a surreptitious message undercover of apparently care-free greetings. 

"Must have a talk, " he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "Something you ought to know immediately. "

A pang of pure fear shot through her mind, but she retained sufficientcommand of herself not to betray her emotion or even to seem anxiousto make the appointment. 

"Oh, there's no chance for that now, " she evaded as per instructions, and with so successful a semblance of indifference that Savage wasopenly and profoundly perplexed. "I've heaps of things yet to do forMrs. Gosnold--I'm really frightfully pushed for time even to dress. "

"Yes--of course. But this talk has got to happen some time soon. However, it ought to be easy enough under our masks. What costume willyou be wearing?"

"I don't know. Mrs. Gosnold promised to find something and send it tomy room. I presume she must have forgotten--but perhaps it'sthere now. "

"Well, keep an eye bright for me, then. I'll be Harlequin--an oldcostume I happened by sheer luck to have left here some years ago. Otherwise, I guess, I'd have to wrap up in a sheet and act like a deadone. "

She laughed mechanically, murmured "I must fly!" and forthwith dashedup the great staircase and to her room. 

Her costume had not yet been delivered; she had still to wait half anhour by the clock; but there was plenty of detail wherewith to occupyher time. On the other hand, the routine of one's toilet is a famousincentive to thoughtfulness, and as she went automatically through themotions of beautifying herself and dressing her hair, Sally's mindtook advantage of this, its first real freedom of the day, and focusedsharply on her own concerns. 

It reminded her, among other things, of the fact that she had not seenLyttleton since an adventitious glimpse of him going in to breakfastjust as she was leaving the house to deliver the invitations. 

She wondered idly about him, in an odd humour of tolerant superiority, as one might contemplate the presumption of an ill-bred child. And shewondered dumbly at herself, whom she found able to imagine withoutflinching an encounter with him of the mildly flirtatious descriptionlicensed by the masquerade. Would he know instinctively who shewas and avoid her? Or have the impudence to renew his advances? Orwould he fail to fathom her identity and so lay himself open to hercastigation?

She did not for an instant forget that she was endued, not only bypersonal right as an injured woman herself at fault, but also by theauthority of Mrs. Gosnold, with letters of marque and reprisal. 

That she would penetrate at sight his disguise, whatever itscharacter, she hadn't the faintest doubt. 

But, then, woman's faith in her vaunted if vaguely comprehendedfaculty of intuition is a beautiful thing and a joy to her forever. 

And she wondered what Savage would have to say to her. But in thisphase her thoughts wore a complexion of far less self-assurance, notwithstanding the moral support of her employer. What could havehappened in New York that he must seek an early meeting to discuss itwith her? What had been the outcome of that terribly incriminatingclue, her name on the garments composing that sloughed chrysalis ofyesterday? Was it possible that her comrades of the studio (Heavens!how historically remote and almost unreal seemed that well-hatedchapter of existence) had become anxious enough to notify the policeof her long absence? In such cases, she believed, something called ageneral alarm was issued--a description of the absentee was readto every member of the metropolitan police force, that it might be onthe alert to apprehend or succour the lost, strayed or stolen. Couldthat possibly have been done in the case of missing Sally Manvers?And, if so, could the police detectives possibly have overlooked thefact that the name of the wanting woman was identical with the name ofthe woman wanted?

For all the strength of her tower of refuge Sally shivered. 

And she realised with a twinge of sincere regret that she would neverdare return and share these happier fortunes with those two unhappypartners of her days of suffering and privation. 

She wasn't heartless; she had thought frequently of them before, butalways with the notion that she would some day, and by happy chancesome day not distant, reveal her transfigured self to them and, out ofthe plenitude of her blessings, lend them a little, and much more thana little, aid and comfort. Something of that sort, indeed, was theleast she could do; it was but justice; it was simply repayment ofacknowledged indebtedness. And now, it seemed, it might never be!

From this she passed into new wonder and bewilderment at the duplicityof Savage and his sister, and the mystery of their motives and thestill deeper mystery of their actions, and the inscrutablemystery of the boat that had landed on the beach of Gosnold House atthree o'clock in the morning. 

All of which led her suddenly to make sure of the jewel-box. 

It was no longer in its place of concealment. 

Mrs. Gosnold, she assumed, must have removed it. 

But for what purpose? To what end?

A knock on the door announced the arrival of her costume by the handsof Mrs. Gosnold's personal maid. 

"And Mrs. Gosnold says please will you come to her boudoir, miss, directly you're dressed?"

"Tell her I'll be there in fifteen minutes. "

Moderate disappointment waited upon recognition of the character ofher assigned disguise. She had had visions of something very splendid, something almost barbaric in its richness--had nursed a day-dream ofherself flaunting radiantly through the chiaroscuro of the moonlightfete like some great jewelled butterfly. 

After that vision the modest garb of a Quaker maid seemed something ofa come-down, even though the costumer's conception of a Quakeress hadbeen considerably influenced by musical comedy standards. 

But her disappointment was fugitive. After all, the dress was ofexquisite quality and finish, and it became her wondrous well. She took from the room the memory of a very fetching figure in a gownof dove-grey crepe-de-chine, the bosom crossed by glistening bands ofwhite, the skirt relieved by a little apron of lace and linen, whitebands at wrist and throat, a close-fitting cap of lace covering herhair, her feet and ankles disclosed discreetly in stockings ofdove-grey silk and suede slippers of the same neutral shade set off bysilver buckles--the whole rendered the more tempting by an almostjaunty cloak of grey satin lined with white. 

With the addition of the mask (which she wore to pass through thecorridor in memory of Mrs. Gosnold's injunction) the effect was quitepositively fascinating. 

And that mask proved to be far from superfluous, for when she followedher knock into the boudoir of her mistress she was thunderstruck tofind nearly two dozen people, men and women, gathered together there, sitting and standing about in a silence which seemed curiouslyconstrained, taken in connection with their festival attire. For theywere all in costume and, with the single exception of Mrs. Gosnold, all masked. 

This last was very brilliant in the billowy silken skirts, puffedsleeves, tight bodice, and wide ruff of Queen Elizabeth, and carriedoff well the character of that hot-tempered majesty, making no effortto disguise the fact that she was deeply wounded and profoundlyagitated. 

She sat regally enthroned upon a spindle-shank chair that matched herescritoire, and betrayed her impatient humour by the quick tapping ofone exquisitely shod foot. And the others seemed to wait upon herpleasure in a silence almost of subjugation--a nervous, unnatural, ominous hush. 

It was broken on Sally's entrance by the mistress of Gosnold House, who nodded without a sign of recognition and said in a bleak mannerthus far in Sally's experience wholly foreign to the nature of thespeaker: "Come in, please, shut the door, and find some place to sitdown. Retain your mask. There are two guests wanting, and we must waitfor them. "

There were no chairs vacant, and a majority of the men were alreadystanding, but another (by whose unquestionably authentic cowboycostume Sally was sure she recognised Trego) rose and silentlysurrendered to her his place. 

She accepted it with a stifled murmur of thanks. 

The slight stir occasioned by her addition to the company subsided, and the sense of constraint became even more marked. Nobody appearedto care to know his neighbour; there was no whispering, no murmuring, even the indispensable fidgeting was accomplished in an apprehensiveand apologetic manner. A few men breathed audibly, a few fansstirred imperceptibly an atmosphere supercharged with radiations fromso many human bodies added to the natural heat of a summer's evening;there were no other sounds or movements of any consequence. Sallybecame uncomfortably susceptible to the undercurrent of high nervoustension, conscious of a slight dew on her hands and forehead, andsurprisingly conscious of the sonorous thumping of her heart. Unaccountably, nobody else seemed to hear it. 

Perhaps they were all listening to their own hearts. But why . . . ?

She wasted a few moments vainly scrutinising the masks in herimmediate neighbourhood. Their eyes gleamed uncannily through theslits in the black silk, and when she intercepted a direct glance, itwas hastily lowered or averted, as if there were something indecorousin acknowledging her bewildered appeal. 

Again, perhaps, they were as much puzzled by her incognito as she wasby theirs. 

Those small shapes of black, silk-covered cardboard proved singularlyeffective, even when they concealed no more than the nose and thecheeks immediately beneath the eyes. She found it surprisinglydifficult to fix an identification, even when satisfied she could notbe in error; but she was measurably sure of Mrs. Artemas beneathDiana's Grecian draperies, of Trego in his Western guise, of MercedesPride in the conventional make-up of a witch. The rest at onceprovoked and eluded conjecture; she fancied she knew Lyttleton in thedoublet and hose of Sir Francis Drake, but could not feel certain;divested of his peculiarly well-tailored personality, he wasastonishingly like half a dozen other men among the guests. 

Presently Mrs. Gosnold's maid, Marie, appeared in the doorway to thebedroom, holding in her hand a number of envelopes, and at a nod fromher mistress began to thread the gathering, presenting one envelope toeach guest, together with a small pencil such as is commonly attachedto dance-programs. 

The incident provided a grateful interruption to a situation that wasrapidly assuming in Sally's esteem the grotesqueness of a dream. Remembering that this was Gosnold House, the focal point of America'smost self-sufficient summer colony, and that all these subdued andinarticulate masqueraders were personages daily exploited by the pressas the brightest stars in the social firmament, the incongruity ofthis dumb gathering seemed as glaring, as bizarre as anything herfancy could conceive. 

And when her envelope was handed her and she had lifted the flap andwithdrawn an oblong correspondence-card bearing the monogram A-G andnothing else, the final effect of meaningless mystery seemed tohave been consummated. 

But this, as it happened, was coincident with the arrival of the lasttwo guests--one of whom was a lithe and shapely Harlequin inparty-coloured tights, and the other a bewitchingly blond Columbine--and then the purpose of the meeting was soon exposed. 

With no more expression than she had employed in the case of Sally, Mrs. Gosnold saluted the last comers with a request to enter and beseated, then directed her maid to go out into the hall, close thedoor, and stand guard to prevent eavesdropping. When the door wasclosed she plunged directly into a prepared address. 

"I owe every one an apology, " she began with a fugitive, placatingsmile, "for all this inconvenience and nonsense--as it must seem. ButI'm sure you will bear with me when you know the circumstances, whichare extraordinary, and my motive, quite a natural one. 

"We are now, " she pursued with a swift glance that embraced the room, "just twenty-three, including myself; that is to say, everybody whoslept here last night, and one or two more. And your masks are a surescreen for any betrayal of emotion when I tell you why I have askedyou to oblige me by meeting here. So please retain them whateverhappens. "

She paused, made a little gesture of deprecation. 

"I would rather almost anything than be obliged to say what I must. 

"One of us, " she announced deliberately, "is a thief. These rooms wereentered some time last night, while I was asleep, and all my personaljewelry was stolen. Please no one interrupt. I will answer all thenatural questions before I finish. 

"The robbery was not difficult to accomplish. "

"The Island is well-policed, there has not been a burglary in itshistory, and I am a careless old woman. When I take my things off atnight I leave them on my dressing-table. Marie, my maid, puts themaway in the morning. I have three large jewel-cases, none of which isever locked except when I travel. I have never had a safe. Thejewel-cases are stored away in unlocked dresser-drawers. My bedroomand boudoir doors are never locked. And I am a sound sleeper. Thereis--and was--nothing to prevent the thief from entering after I hadturned out my light and, employing ordinary discretion, helping him orher self. Which is precisely what happened last night. Every piece ofjewelry was taken from my dressing-table, and the three jewel-casesfrom their drawers. "

"I discovered my loss promptly after waking up this morning. I saidnothing, but after setting in motion the machinery forto-night's amusement, which I have long had in mind, devoted the dayto a quiet investigation, as a result of which I am convinced that thehouse servants had no part in the robbery. In short, I am persuadedthat the thief is now in this room. I do not, however, wish to knowhis or her identity. And I am especially anxious to avoid the scandalwhich must follow if this affair leaks out. "

"Finally, I feel so sure you all share my horror of publicity and myaversion to knowing positively who committed this crime that I ask youall silently to pledge yourselves to secrecy--and then to humour myplan for regaining my jewels and covering up the affair completely. Ihave thought it might be accomplished this way:"

"Marie has given you each a card, an envelope, and a pencil. The cardsand envelopes have no distinguishing marks. The pencils are all alike. The authorship of anything you may care to communicate cannot possiblybe traced, if you will be careful not to write but to print. "

"Please take the cards away with you to your rooms, and please each ofyou remain there at least five minutes before coming out. Then takethe cards in the envelopes, sealed, down-stairs and deposit them inthe mail-box. It will not be unlocked until one o'clock. By that timeI shall expect the thief to have deposited my jewelry in somehiding-place about the house or grounds--a dozen will suggestthemselves on a moment's thought--the spot to be indicated on thecard. By this method ample time is granted in which to makerestitution with complete immunity from recognition, the secret willbe kept, the scandal hushed up, and, best of all, I shall be able tocontinue considering each and every one of you my very dear friend. "

"But"--and her handsome old face darkened with the shadow of thedetermination that rang in her tone--"if this scheme should fail, andthe thief refuse to make restitution, then, though it break my heart, I shall feel without alternative other than to take certainsteps--steps which I cannot now contemplate without positive loathing, so repugnant are they to me. . . . "

"Now I have finished, " Mrs. Gosnold said quietly. "I am sorry to haveimposed in this way upon your patience, but it seemed, I think you'llgrant me, warranted and necessary. I thank you, and hope you'llforgive me. And now will you please return to your rooms, withoutasking me any questions, and do as I have begged? And I sincerely hopethat this wretched business may not interfere with your enjoymentto-night. For my part, I am so confident of the success of this schemethat I mean to consider that I have not been robbed--that everythingis as it has always been, and as it will be after the envelopesare opened at one o'clock. "

She ceased; there was the stir of a general rising and movement towardthe door, amid a hum of excited murmurings. 

CHAPTER XIII

MARPLOT

Once sheltered by the privacy of her bedchamber and seated before thelittle white-enamel desk with its chintz-covered fittings that suitedso well the simple, cheerful scheme of decoration, the girl lingeredlong, an idle pencil caught between fingers infirm of purpose. Hergaze was fixed as if hypnotised to the blank white face of the bit ofcardboard that lay before her on the blotting-pad, her thoughts farastray in a dark jungle of horror, doubts, suspicions, fears. 

Immediately after shutting herself in she had gone straight to thisdesk, possessed by the notion that there was a message requiring to bewritten upon the card, one self-exculpatory sentence which had frameditself in her mind as she sped down the corridor from that remarkablemeeting in Mrs. Gosnold's rooms. 

"I have not told you everything--but I am innocent, " thus ran thewords which she felt were demanded of her and a legitimate privilege, her duty to herself in sheer self-preservation. And as theywrote themselves down before her mental vision she saw two heavystrokes of the pen underlining "everything, " and her own true name, Sarah Manvers, following in the place of the signature--no more "SaraManwaring, " Mrs. Gosnold's explicit commands to the contrarynotwithstanding. 

But that had been an impulse, only natural in the first shock ofhorror inevitably attending the disclosure of the robbery, to clearherself; or, rather, to reaffirm her innocence. 

For with second thought had come the consideration: Was she notalready cleared, was her innocence not already established?

She was prepared to believe that Mrs. Gosnold knew everything. Thatextraordinary woman! What had she not known, indeed? Mark howcunningly she had drawn from Sally the admission that she had been upand about the house and grounds long after she had gone to herbedchamber for the night--at the very time, most probably, when therobbery was being done! And that had been by way of preface to thepledge she had made Sally of her protection before startlingconfession from the girl--a pledge not only given in advance, but byimplication at least renewed when the truth was out. 

If she had believed Sally guilty, or party to the crime, or evenin possession of guilty knowledge of it, would she have made thatgenerous promise?

She was kind of heart, was Mrs. Gosnold, but she was nobody's fool; ifshe had not been well satisfied in her own mind as to the thief shewould never have so committed herself to Sally, for she was no one togive her word lightly or, as she herself had said, to bait a trap withfair words and flattery. 

In vain Sally searched her memory for anything to warrant anassumption that her mistress had been in any way ignorant of thatblack business of the small hours. She had neither denied suchknowledge nor asserted it, but had simply permitted Sally to leave outof her account all reference to the overnight adventure. 

And all that assorted consistently with her statement that she did notwish to learn the thief's identity, as well as with her invention of ameans for obtaining restitution without such intelligence. 

So Sally ended by believing it rather more than possible that Mrs. Gosnold knew as well as the girl herself who had consummated thecrime--or, at all events, shared the damning suspicions engendered inSally's mind by circumstantial evidence. 

Lyttleton, of course: Sally entertained but the slenderest doubts ofhis black guilt. 

If innocent, what had he been carrying hidden in the hollow of hisarm? What had he left down there on the beach? Why had he leftit there? Why such anxiety to escape observation as to make the manalert to notice Sally's head peering over the parapet of the landingat the head of the cliff? And if he had been employed in no way to beashamed of, and had no consequences to fear, why that roundabout wayup the cliff again and that ambush of his watcher?

And why those signals between window and yacht, if not to apprise thelatter that something had been consummated, that the coast was clearfor its tender to come in and take away the plunder?

It would seem, then, that Mr. Lyttleton must have had a confederate inthe house, and for that role Mrs. Standish was plainly designated. Anunderstanding of some close sort between her and Lyttleton had beenquite evident from the very first day. And whose bedchamber window hadshown the signals, if not hers? Not the pretty young widow's--not inany likelihood Mrs. Artemas'. To believe the latter intimate with theaffair was to assume an understanding between her and Lyttleton--orelse Trego. 

Trego!

Sally was conscious of a slight mental start, a flurry of thoughts andsensations, of judgment in conflict with emotions. 

Why not Trego? A likelier man than Lyttleton for such a job, indeed. Trego had such force of personality as to excuse the suspicionthat what he might desire he would boldly go after and possess himselfof. With a nature better adapted to the planning and execution ofadventures demanding courage, daring and indifference to ethicalconsiderations, Trego was capable of anything. Lyttleton was offlimsier stuff, or instinct were untrustworthy. 

But after a little the girl sighed and shook her head. It was lessplausible, this effort of hers, to cast Trego for the role of villain. True, he might have invented that story of the marks on the sands;true again, he might have acted in accord with Mrs. Artemas. But thosewere far-fetched possibilities. Unless, indeed, professed distrust anddislike of Mrs. Artemas had been altogether ingenious, a maskmanufactured in anticipation of just this development. 

No, it wasn't likely of Trego. She could not overlook the impressionhe conveyed of rugged honesty and straightforwardness. However strongthe aversion he inspired, Sally could ignore neither that impressionnor yet its correlative, that if he was not an over-righteous scornerof lies, he was the sort that would suffer much rather than seek toprofit by a lie. 

She perceived, with a little qualm of contrition, that she hadbeen eager to condemn the man out of sheer unreasonable prejudice, alltoo ready to do him injustice in her thoughts. Unpleasant though shefound his personality, harshly though his crudities grated upon hersensibilities, she owed him gratitude for an intimate service in anemergency when she had been only too glad of his personalintervention; and it were rank ingratitude to wish him ill, just as itwas frankly base of her to be eager to think ill of him. 

Repentance had got hold of this girl by the nape of her neck; it shookher roughly, if justly. For a little time she cringed in shame ofherself and was torn by desire in some way to make amends to thisanimal of a Trego, whom she so despised because he refused to play upto the snob in her and ape the manners of his putative betters even asshe was keen to ape them. 

Perhaps it had needed this ugly happening, or something as unsettling, to reveal the girl to herself in a true light--at least a light lessflattering than she found pleasant. 

Certainly its aftermath in the way of private communion served well tosober and humble Sally in her own esteem. Outside the immediate fieldof her reverie she was now conscious of the words "sycophant" and"parasite" buzzing like mosquitoes about the head of some franticwooer of sleep, elusive, pitiless, exasperating, making it justso much more difficult to concentrate upon this importunate problem ofher duty. 

If she was not to protest her own innocence, what ought she to sayupon that card?

Was it consistent with loyalty to Mrs. Gosnold to keep silence aboutmatters that might clear up the mystery and repair the wrong-doing?

But how could she attack another? How bring herself to point thefinger of accusation at Lyttleton?

On the terrace outside her window a stringed orchestra tuned andhummed softly in the perfumed night. Rumour of gay voices and lightlaughter came to her in ever greater volume. Before her distractedgaze swam a view of the formal garden, a-glimmer like a corner offairy-land with the hundreds of tiny lamps half concealed amid thefoliage of its shrubs and hedges. 

She knew that she must rouse herself and be seen below; not only musther message take its place with its twenty-odd fellows in themail-box, but nothing could seem so incriminating as prolonged anddeliberate absence from the fete. 

Yet she had little desire now for what two hours since had seemed aprospect of bewitching promise. The music rose and fell in magicmeasure without its erstwhile power to stir her pulses. There wasnot one in all that company below for whom she cared or whocared for her, none but whose interest in her presence or absence wasas slight as hers; and her mood shrank from the thought of such casualand conventional gallantries as the affair would inevitably bringforth. She was in no humour tonight to dance and banter and coquettewith an empty and desolate heart. 

Thus it was made clear to her that she had never been, and never wouldbe, in such humour; that in just this circumstance resided all herinsuperable dissociation from these people of light-hearted lives;that this was why she was and forever must remain, however long andintimate her life among them, an outsider; because what she needed anddemanded, the blind and inarticulate impulse which had made her aspireto their society, was not the need of a wide social life, but the needof a narrow and constricting love. 

And all the love that she had thus far found in this earthly paradisehad proved a delusion, a mockery and a snare. 

Presently she stirred with reluctance, sighed, resigned herself to theprospect of a night of hollow, grinning merriment, and turned back tocontemplation of that importunate card. And while still she hesitated, pencil poised, with neither knock nor any sort of announcementwhatsoever the door flew open, and through it, like a fury in afairy's dress, flew Mrs. Standish clothed as Columbine. 

She shut the door sharply, put her back to it, and keeping her gazefixed on the amazed girl, turned the key. 

Her passion was as evident as it was senseless. Bare of the mask thatswung from silken strings caught in her fingers, her face shone brightwith the incandescence of seething agitation. Her eyes were hard, hermouth tight-lipped, her temper patently set on a hair-trigger. 

Quite automatically, on this interruption, Sally rose and, standing, slipped the card into its envelope, an action which brought from theolder woman a curt, imperative gesture. 

"What have you written there?" she demanded brusquely. 

Before answering Sally carried the envelope to her lips, moistened itsflap, and sealed it. Thus she gained time to collect herself andcompose her attitude, which turned out unexpectedly to be somethingcold and critical. 

"Why do you ask?" she returned. 

"Because I've a right to know. If it concerns me--"

"Why should it?" Sally cut in. 

"You know very well that if you breathe a syllable about last night--"

"But what about last night? You came to my room while I wasinexplicably out and waited till I returned. I can't see why youshould care if that became known. "

"Have you written anything about that?" Mrs. Standish demandedinsistently. 

"And even if I had, and you were merely afraid of being embarrassed, Icouldn't very well drag you in without incriminating myself, now couldI?"

"I don't care to bandy words with you, young woman. Tell me--"

"You needn't to please me, you know. And I shan't tell you anything. "

"Why--?"

"My business, " said Sally with all the insolence she knew how toinfuse into her tone. "I think we covered that question rathercompletely last night--or rather this morning. I imagined it wassettled. In fact, it was. I don't care to reopen it; but I will saythis--or repeat it, if you prefer: I'm not going to permit you tointerfere in my private affairs. "

"You refuse to tell me what you've written?"

"For the last time--positively. "

"See here, " Mrs. Standish ventured, after a baffled moment: "bereasonable. There's no sense in making me lose my temper. "

"I'm sure I don't wish you to. "

"Then tell me-"

"No. "

"Must I threaten you?"

Sally elevated supercilious eyebrows. "If you like. "

"I have a way to force you to obey me. "

"Oh?" There was an accent in this innocent syllable cunninglycalculated to madden. 

"Very well. If you will have it. Do you recall a certain letter ofintroduction?"

"Why--no. "

"That you brought me from Mrs. Cornwallis English. "

"What do you mean?"

"Don't be stupid. You surely are not prepared to deny that you came tome last Wednesday, looking for work, with what purported to be aletter of recommendation from Mrs. English. "

"Please go on. "

"Well, " Mrs. Standish announced triumphantly, "I kept that letter, ofcourse, and now I've had occasion to look closely, I find it's aforgery. "

"Please!" Sally faltered. 

"I tell you, I have safe in my possession a letter recommending you tome and signed with the forged signature of Mrs. Cornwallis English. Ifnecessary to protect myself, I shall not scruple to exhibit thatletter. "

"Oh!" With a gasp of incredulity Sally sat down and stared at thisimpudent intrigante. 

"Now will you tell me what you've written? No. I won't trust you totell me. Give me that envelope. I'll see for myself. "

"It isn't possible, " Sally said, "that you would do anything so crueland unjust and dishonest?"

"Dishonest? I dare say you consider yourself a judge. "

"I can't believe it of you, Mrs. Standish. "

"That's your personal affair, of course. You've asked me not tointerfere. . . . "

She permitted Sally to think it over, meantime coming closer, holdingout her hand with an effect of confident patience. 

"Surely you wouldn't show that forgery you've made up to Mrs. Gosnold?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'forgery I've made up. ' I shan'thesitate to show the forgery you brought me. "

"I guessed all along, " Sally told her, "that you were not what youmade yourself out to be, neither a good woman nor a kind one. But Inever for a moment imagined you would stoop to such infamy. "

"Now that's settled, be good enough--"

"But what makes you so afraid I'll tell Mrs. Gosnold about lastnight?"

"To protect yourself, of course. I don't believe you mean toconfess--"

"Confess!"

"Take advantage of this opportunity to restore the jewels--and get offwithout punishment. Probably you can't. Probably the man you metoutside and gave them to is by now so far away that you couldn't, evenif you wanted to. "

"Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. I don't want to make anymistake. "

"Sensible of you, I'm sure. "

"You really mean to accuse me of this abominable thing?"

"I know no reason to believe you incapable of it. And you did meet aman out there last night. "

"Then why do you hesitate to inform Mrs. Gosnold? Isn't it your duty?"

"I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, providing you--"

"Have you consulted Mr. Lyttleton about this?"

That shot told. Mrs. Standish paused with an open mouth. "Mr. Lyttleton!" she exclaimed, recovering, in a tone that implied completeignorance of the existence of any such person. 

"Mr. Lyttleton, " Sally repeated. "You know very well it was he to whomI was talking out there--and I know you know it. "

"Say I do, for the sake of the argument; do you imagine Mr. Lyttleton would sacrifice himself--admit that he got up and left thehouse, for whatever reason, last night after going to bed--to saveyou?"

"No, " Sally conceded; "I don't expect anything from either you or anyof your friends. But Mr. Lyttleton will find the facts hard to deny. There was a witness, you must know--though I've no doubt it's news toyou. He wouldn't be likely to mention that to you. In fact, I can seefrom your face he didn't. But there was. "

"Who?" the woman stammered. 

"That's for you to find out. Why not ask Mr. Lyttleton? It's no good, Mrs. Standish. I don't understand your motive, and I'd rather notguess at it; but I'm not a child to be scared by a bogy. Show yourforged letter to Mrs. Gosnold, if you like--or come with me and we'llboth show it to her--"

"Are you mad'? Do you want to be exposed?"

"I'm not afraid, Mrs. Standish--and you are!"

After an instant the woman's eyes clouded and fell. "I don't know whatyou mean, " she faltered. 

"I mean that this scene has gone on long enough. I'm sick and tired ofit--and it isn't getting you anything, either. Good _night_!"

With this Sally marched to the door, turned the knob, and found itlocked and the key missing. 

"The key, please, Mrs. Standish. "

"Not till you tell me--" the other began with a flash of revivingspirit. 

Sally advanced a finger toward the push-button. "Must I call one ofthe maids to let me out?"

Capitulation was signalled with a distracted gesture. "Miss Manwaring, do tell me--"

"Nothing--I'll tell you nothing! Give me that key. "

"Promise you haven't written--"

"The key!"

It was surrendered. "Well--but that jewel-case: what have you donewith it?"

"I've hidden it. "

"Where?"

"I'll tell you to-morrow, perhaps. "

Opening the door, Sally strode out with her head high and the light ofbattle in her eyes. 

A hesitant, pleading call followed her, but she wouldn't hear it. Pursuit and continuation of the scene, with or without anotherspecious semblance of apology and reconciliation such as hadterminated their previous passage-at-arms, was out of the question;the corridor was lively with young women in gayest plumage, flutteringto and from the dressing-rooms, and Sally was among them even beforeshe remembered to reassume her mask. 

At the head of the main staircase she paused, searching narrowly theshifting groupings of the animated scene disclosed by the widereception-hall. She was looking for Queen Elizabeth's imperious ruff, anxious to find and keep in the shadow of that great lady's sovereignpresence; and she was also looking for the leather-banded sombrero ofthe cowboy and the skull-cap of Harlequin, with a concern keen toavoid those gentlemen. 

Considerably to her surprise, still more to her disappointment, noteven the first of these was in evidence (as Sally had made sure Mrs. Gosnold would be) waiting to welcome her guests just within thedoorway to the porte-cochere. 

None the less, the lady must be found, and that without delay; theenvelope, with its blank enclosure half crushed in Sally's hand, wasan ever-present reminder of her duty first to herself, secondly to heremployer. If she had written nothing, and but for Mrs. Standish wouldhave kept her counsel till the last minute, the latter's threat ofdenunciation had lent the temper of the girl another complexionaltogether; as Sally saw it, she no longer had any choice other thanto find Mrs. Gosnold as quickly as possible and make complete therevelation of last night's doings. And her mind was fixed to this, with a cast of angry pertinacity that would prove far from easy tooppose or even to modify; whether or not the hostess wished it, shemust suffer herself to be informed immediately and completely. 

Threading a swift way in and out among the masks clustered upon thebroad staircase in groups of twos and threes, laughing, chattering andwatching the restless play of life and colour in the hall, she gainedthe floor and then the letter-box, near the door where she had thoughtto find her employer. 

A distrustful scrutiny of the near-by masks failed to single out oneof those she had marked and memorised in the boudoir, and withoutdetecting any overt interest in her actions, she slipped her blamelessmessage into the box, then turned back and, steadfast to her purpose, made her way forward through the throng to the veranda. 

After the glare of the hall the dusk of the veranda was as grateful asits coolth and spaciousness. Beyond the rail the purple-and-silvernight pressed close and beckoned; its breath was sweet, its pulsesthrobbed with the rhythmic passion of violins that sobbed and sang inhiding somewhere in the shadows. Up and down that broad, smoothflooring gay couples swayed, eye to eye and breast to breast:anachronisms reconciled by the witchery of the dance. And when Sallydarted across and down the steps she found the lawns, the terrace, andthe formal garden, too, peopled with paired shadows, murmurous withsoft voices and low-pitched laughter. 

And she who quartered so swiftly and so diligently that maze of lightsand shadows found nowhere the one she wanted, but everywhere theconfirmation of her secret thought--that there was no place here forher, no room, no welcome. On every hand love lurked, lingered, languished, but not for her. Whichever way she turned she saw somelover searching for his mistress, but not for her. They crossed herpath and paused and stared, sometimes they spoke and looked deep intoher eyes and harkened to the voice with which she answered them, giving back jest for jest--and they muttered excuses and hurried on;she was never for them. 

It was as if life and fate conspired to humble her spirit and proveher ambitious of place beyond her worth; to persuade her that she wasby birth, and must resign herself to remain always, Nobody. 

Forlornly haunted, she circled back to the house, and on impulsesought again the boudoir door. 

Marie answered, but shook her head; no, she could not say where Mrs. Gosnold might be found. 

Impulse again took her out by the door to the drive. Motors were stillarriving and departing, to return at a designated hour, but here, atwhat might be termed the back of Gosnold House--if that mansion couldbe said to have either back or front--here on the landward side waslittle light or noise or movement. And after an undecided moment onthe steps beneath the porte-cochere the Quakeress stepped down and outinto the blackness of the shadow cast by the western wing, adeep shadow, dense and wide from the pale wall of the house to theedge of the moon-pale lawn. 

She moved slowly on through this pleasant space of semi-darkness, footfalls muffled by the close-trimmed turf, her emotions calming alittle from the agitation which had been waxing ever more high andstrong in her with each successive crisis of the night. Here thebreeze was warm and bland, the music and the laughter a remote rumour, stars glimmered in a dome of lapis lazuli; peace was to be distilledof such things by the contemplative mind, peace and a sweet, sad senseof the beauty and pain of life. No place more fit than this could onewish wherein to shelter and to nurse bruised illusions. 

Insensibly she drew near the corner of the building, in abstraction sodeep and still that she was almost upon them when she appreciated thefact that people were talking just beyond that high, white shoulder ofstone, and was struck by the personal significance of a phrase thatstill echoed in ears which it had at first found heedless: ". . . AQuaker costume, grey and white, with a cloak . . . "

It never occurred to the girl to stop and eavesdrop; but between thatinstant of reawakened consciousness and the moment when she camearound the corner, three voices sealed an understanding:

"You've simply got to make her listen to reason . . . "

"Oh, leave that to my well-known art!"

"She'll see a great light before one o'clock or I'm--"

Silence fell like a thunderclap as the Quaker Girl confrontedHarlequin, Columbine, and Sir Francis Drake. 

She said coolly: "You were speaking of me, I believe?"

Drake stepped back, swore in his false beard, and disappeared roundthe corner in a twinkling. 

Columbine snapped like the shrew she masked: "You little sneak!"

And Harlequin capped that with an easy laugh: "Oh, do keep yourtemper, Adele. You've less tact than any woman that ever breathed, Iverily believe. Cut along now; I'll square matters for you with MissManwaring--if it's possible. "

With a stifled exclamation Columbine caught her cloak round her andfollowed Drake. 

The accent of the comic was not lost upon the girl. She could not butlaugh a little at Harlequin's undisguised discomfiture. 

"So you're nominated for the office of peace-maker, Mr. Savage?"

"I'm afraid so. " He shuffled, nervously slapping his well-turnedcalves with Harlequin's lath-sword. "I swear, " he complained, "Ido believe Adele is crazier than most women most of the time. She'sjust been telling me what a fool she made of herself with you. I'mawfully glad you turned up when you did. "

"I noticed that, believe me!"

"Oh, I mean it. Ever since dinner I've been looking for an opportunityto explain things to you, but until Adele told me your costume justnow--"

"Well?" Sally inquired in a patient tone as he broke off. 

"We can't talk here. It's no good place--as you've just proved. Besides, I've got an appointment with another lady. " He grinnedgracelessly. "No, not what you think--not philandering--but inconnection with this same business. I've got to butter thick withdiplomacy an awful lot of mistaken apprehensions before I can set Donand Adele right, after that confounded foolishness of theirs lastnight--and this rotten robbery coming on top of it, to make thingslook black! It's a frightful, awful mixup, really, but as innocent asdaylight if you only understand it. Look here, won't you give me ashow to explain?"

"Why, I'm here, and I can't help listening. "

"No. I mean later. I can't stop now, really. "

"How much later?"

"Let's see. It's nearly midnight, and all this has got to becleared up and set straight before one. Do be patient with me until aquarter to one, now won't you please?"

"I may be busy then. "

"Oh, come! That's all swank, and you know it. Besides, you do owe me, at least, some little consideration. I don't mean that, exactly--ouraccount's pretty well squared, the way I see it. But, after all, life's a give-and-take affair. Say you'll meet me at a quarter toone. "

"Well. Where?"

He appeared to take thought. "It's got to be somewhere off the beatentrack. And you're not afraid of the dark. Would you mind coming as faras the gate on the drive?"

"Back there, beyond the trees?"

"I mean the gateway to the main road. "

"I wonder why you want me there, of all places. Oh, never mind!" Sheforestalled a protest of injured innocence. "I'm not in the leastafraid to find out. Yes; I'll be there at a quarter to one. "

"You're a brick!" Savage declared fervently. "You won't regret beingso decent to me. Now I'll run along and be a diplomatist. "

He cut a light-hearted caper, just to prove he could, slashed the airgaily with his wooden sword, bowed low and skipped round the corner, leaving Sally even more puzzled than before but somehowplacated--comforted by a sense of her own consequence conjured up bythe way in which apparently she could manage people . . . 

Savage, for instance. 

CHAPTER XIV

MAGIC

For several seconds after Savage had made off Sally delayed there, alone on the empty lawn in the westerly shadow of Gosnold House, doubting what next to do, where next to turn in quest of Mrs. Gosnold;questioning the motive for that furtive meeting which she hadsurprised, wondering at Savage's insistence on a spot so remote andinconvenient for their appointment, and why it must needs be kept inso underhand a fashion, and whether she had been wise to consent to itand would be wise to keep it. She was at a loss how to fill in thetime until the hour nominated, shrinking alike from the lights andgaiety of the hall, the supper-room and the veranda, and the romantic, love-sick peace of moonlit lawns and gardens. Altogether she was in amost complicated, distracted, uncertain and unhappy frame of mind. 

Then a latch clicked softly, the hinges of a shutter whined, and thestartled young woman found herself staring up into the face of Mrs. Gosnold--a pallid oval against the dark background of anunlighted window not two feet above Sally's head. 

She gasped, but respected the admonition of a finger pressed lightlyupon the lady's smiling lips. 

"S-s-s-sh!" said Mrs. Gosnold mysteriously, with cautious glancesright and left. 

"There's no one here, " Sally assured her in tones appropriatelyguarded. "You've been listening--" Mrs. Gosnold nodded with amischievous twinkle: "I have that!"

"You heard--?"

"Something--not much--not enough. If you had only been a few minuteslater. . . "

"I'm sorry, but I've been looking for you everywhere. Please, may Icome in and tell you something?"

"Not now. "

"It's very important--something you ought to know at once. "

"Oh, my dear!" the woman sighed with genuine regret: "I know alreadyfar more than I care to know!"

"But this--"

"Not now, I say. I've been too frequently and too long away from myguests as it is. I'll have to show myself for a little while. Then, come to my room in half an hour. "

"At half past twelve?"

"Yes, and don't be late. Now do run along and have a good time. "

The shutter was drawn gently to, and Sally, with an embittered smilefor the unconscious irony of that parting injunction, moved slowly ontoward the front of the house. 

But it was true that she felt a little less disconsolate now than shehad two minutes ago; after all, it seemed, she wasn't altogetherfriendless and forsaken; and as for those doubts and questions whichso perplexed her, they would all be resolved and answered once she hadopportunity to lay them, together with the story of last night, beforethe judgment of her benefactress. . . . 

Still, if she reckoned confidently upon her hostess, she reckoned notwisely without her host, whose mask to-night was that of a sardonicdestiny. And when a tentative venture into the throngs on the verandahad been discouraged by the spirited advances of a forward youngCavalier who chose to consider his honour piqued, first by her demureQuaker garb, then by her unresponsiveness, Sally was glad enough tofall back upon the comparative quiet and solitude of the moon-drenchedgardens. Whereupon her destiny grinned a heartless grin and arrangedto throw her to the lions that, all unsuspected, raged in the maidenbosom of Mercedes Pride. 

The tireless ingenuity with which that rampant spinster devised waysand means of rendering herself a peripatetic pest had long since wonthe ungrudged admiration of Sally, who elected to be amused more thanannoyed by the impertinences, the pretentiousness, the fawningadulation and the corrosive jealousy of Mrs. Gosnold's licensedpick-thank. And when she had first divined the woman beneath thedisguise of the witch Sally had wondered what new method of making asprightly nuisance of herself Miss Pride had invented to go with herimpersonation. 

It proved, naturally enough, remembering the limitations of a NewEngland maiden's imagination, to be compulsory fortune-telling withthe aid of cards, a crystal ball, the palm of the victim's hand, unlimited effrontery, and a "den" rigged up in a corner of a hedgewith a Navajo blanket for a canopy and for properties two woodenstools, a small folding table, a papier-mache skull, a jointed woodensnake, an artificial pumpkin-head with a candle in it, and a black cattethered by a string to a stake in the ground and wishing he had neverbeen born. 

Within this noisome lair the sorceress squatted and practised herunholy arts upon all comers without mercy or distinction as to race, caste, sex, age, colour, or previous condition of servitude. And whentrade slackened (as inevitably it did when "the young people"for whose "amusement" this mummery ostensibly was staged assertedtheir ennui by avoiding the neighbourhood) Ecstatica, nothing daunted, would rise up and go forth and stalk her prey among the more mature, dragging them off forcibly by the hand, when needs must, to sit at hertable and sympathise with the unfortunate cat and humour her nonsense. 

Thus she inveigled Sally when the latter unwarily wandered her way. 

Miss Pride knew her victim perfectly, but for the sake of appearanceskept up the semblance of mystification. 

"Sit you there, my pretty, " she grabbed vivaciously, two hands onSally's shoulders urging her to rest on one of the stools. "Don't beafraid of my simple magic; the black art has nothing to do with thelore of the wise old woman. Just show me your rosy palm, and I willtell you your fortune. No, you needn't cross my palm with silver; Iwill ply my mystic trade and tell your future all for the sake of yourpretty eyes. "

She peered, blinking with make-believe myopia, into the hollow ofSally's hand. 

"Ah, yes, yes!" she grunted, "you have an amiable and affectionatedisposition; you love pretty things to wear and every sort ofpleasure. There is your gravest fault and greatest danger, pretty: love of clothes and pleasure and--forgive the wise old woman'splain speaking--false ambitions. Beware of the sin of vain ambition;only wrong and unhappiness can come of that. No, no; don't draw yourhand away. I have not finished. Let me look closer. There is muchwritten here that you should know and none but my wise old eyes canread, pretty. "

Effrontery battened on indulgence:

"The past has been unfortunate. The present is bright with misleadingglamour--beware of the vanities of the flesh! The future--I see ashadow. It is dark. It is difficult to read. I see a journey beforeyou--a long journey; you will cross water and travel by thesteam-cars. And there is a lover waiting for you at the journey'send--not here, but far away. I cannot see him clearly, but he waits. Perhaps later, when I consult my magic sphere of crystal. But wait!"

She breathed hard for a moment, perhaps appreciating her temerity; butshe was as little capable of reading Sally's character as her palm. 

"I see danger in your path, " she resumed in accents of awe; "theshadow of something evil--and a window barred with iron. I cannot saywhat this means, but you should know. Look into your heart, my pretty;think. If perhaps you have done something you should not have done, and if you would not suffer shame for it, you must make allhaste to undo that which you have done--"

"Miss Pride!" Sally interrupted hotly, snatching her hand away. "You--"

"No, no. I have no name!" the other protested in the falsetto she hadadopted to suit her impersonation; "I am only the wise old woman whotells the future and the past and reads the secrets . . . "

But the white anger that glowed in Sally's countenance abashed her. The shrill tones trailed off into a mumble. She looked uneasily aside. 

"You must not be angry with the poor old wise woman, " she stammereduncertainly. 

"You know very well what you have said, " Sally told her in a low voicevibrant with indignation. "You know very well you have deliberatelyinsulted me. "

"No, no!"

"You know who I am and what your insinuation means, after what hashappened here to-night. Miss Pride! Do you dare accuse me--?"

"Oh, no-please!" Mercedes begged, aghast, quaking in realisation ofthe enormity of her mistake. "I didn't think--I didn't know you--Ididn't mean--"

"That, " Sally cut in tensely, "is a deliberate falsehood. Youinveigled me into this for the sole purpose of insulting me. Now Imean to have you repeat your accusation before witnesses. Ishall inform Mrs. Gosnold--"

"Oh, no, Miss Manwaring! I beg of you, no! I didn't mean what youthink, indeed I didn't!"

Sally made to speak, choked upon her indignation, and gulped. 

"That's a lie!" she declared huskily; and rising fled the place. 

She went a few hasty paces blindly, then remembering she mustn't makean exhibition of herself, however great the provocation, checked hersteps and went on at a less conspicuous and precipitate rate. 

But still her vision was dark with tears of rage and mortification, and still her bosom heaved convulsively. Now and again she stumbled. 

Twice since nightfall the abominable accusation had been flung intoher face, the unthinkable thing imputed to her, and this last time outof sheer, gratuitous spleen, the jealous spite of a mean-minded oldmaid. For Miss Pride had no such excuse as Adele Standish had forthinking Sally capable of infamy--unless indeed, Mrs. Standish hadproved false to her pledge and had told people. But no; she'd never dothat; not, at least, while the settlement of her insurance claimremained in abeyance. 

The brutality of it!

A strong hand closing unceremoniously on her wrist brought Sally to astandstill within two paces of the low stone wall that guarded thebrink of the cliff. 

"Look where you're going, Miss; Manwaring!" Trego's voice counselledher quietly. Then, seeing that she yielded readily, he released her. "I beg your pardon, " he said, "but in another minute if I hadn't takenthe liberty of stopping you, you might have hurt yourself. "

She managed to mutter an ungracious "Thank you. "

"It's none of my business, " Trego volunteered with some heat, "but I'dlike to know what that vicious old vixen found to say to upset youthis way. "

"Oh, you were watching. "

"No; I just happened to be sticking round when you flew out of thatfool sideshow of hers like you were possessed. And then I saw youweren't paying much attention where you were going, and I was afraid. Hope you don't mind my butting in. "

"Not at all, " she gulped. "I suppose I ought to be grateful. "

"That's just as you feel about it, " he allowed reasonably. 

She made an effort to collect herself. "But I am grateful, " sheasserted. "Please don't think I mean to be rude. Only, " shegulped again, overcome by the stinging memory of that woman'sinsolence, "I'd almost as lief you hadn't stopped me--and that wallwasn't there!"

"Now, now!" he reminded her. "It can't be as bad as all that, youknow. "

"Well, but think how you would feel if you'd been twice accused ofstealing Mrs. Gosnold's jewels last night!"

"Once would be plenty, " he said gravely. "I don't reckon anybody wouldsay that twice to my bare face. "

"Yes--but you can resent insults like a man. "

"That's right, too. But then it's the only way I know to resent'em--with my fists. That's where you women put it all over us men; youknow a hundred different ways of sinking the poisoned barb subtly. Iwouldn't like to be that Pride critter when you get through with her. "

There was unquestionably a certain amount of comfort to be gained byviewing the case from this angle. Sally became calmer and brightenedperceptibly. 

"Perhaps, " she murmured in an enigmatic manner becoming in theputative mistress of unutterable arts. 

"It's just like that shrivelled old shrew. What you might expect. If Ihad thought of it in time, I'd've been willing to make a book onher laying it to you. "

"But why?" Sally protested perplexedly. 

"Sure, I don't have to tell you why, " he said diplomatically. "Youknow as well as I do she's plumb corroded with jealousy of you forwinning out with her dear Abigail just when she thought she had thingsfixed. I don't suppose you know the inside story of how yourpredecessor got the sack? The Pride person was responsible. MissMatring was in her way, and a good deal of her own disposition toboot. It was a merry war, all right, while it lasted--scheming andsquabbling and backbiting and tattling and corrupting servants tocarry tales--all that sort of thing. To be honest about it, I don'tjust know which was the worse of the two; they didn't either of themstick at much of anything noticeable. But, of course, Miss Matring washandicapped, not being blood-kin, and the upshot was she had togo--and until you showed up the old maid was actually miserable forwant of somebody to hate. I noticed the light of battle in those beadylittle eyes of hers the minute she laid 'em on you. I'd have warnedyou, only . . . "

He stumbled. She encouraged him: "Why didn't you?"

She didn't like Trego--that was understood--but sympathy was verysweet to her just then, whatever its source, and she had no realobjection to disparagement of her slanderer, either. 

"Well, it wasn't my fight. And I didn't know how you'd takeinterference. You looked pretty well able to take care of yourself--infact, you are. And then--I don't reckon it's going to do me any goodto say this; but I might as well make a clean breast of it--I was justselfish enough to have a sneaking sort of hope, deep down, that maybeyou'd find it so unpleasant you'd quit. "

"Mr. Trego!" No more than that; he had taken her breath away. 

"I guess that does sound funny, " he admitted, evading her indignanteye. "You can't trust me, ever. I always say things the wrong way;that's the best thing I do. "

"If it's possible for you to explain . . . "

"It's possible, all right, but it's anything but easy. What I meantwas . . . Well, any fool could see that as long as you were so strongfor this society racket I didn't stand much show. "

"Show?"

"Of making good with you. Oh, look here, what's the use of beatingabout the bush? I'm a rude, two-fisted animal, and that's all againstme. I never could flummux up my meaning successfully with a lot ofwords like--well, name no names. All the same, it's pretty hard for afellow who knows the girl he's sweet on isn't crazy about him tocome out in plain talk and say he loves her. "

She was dumb. She stared incredulously at his heavy, sincere, embarrassed face, as if it were something abnormal, almostsupernatural, a hallucination. 

"Meaning" he faltered, "I mean to say--of course--I love you, Sar--er--ah--Miss Manwaring--and I think I can make you happy--"

He was making heavy weather of his simple declaration, labouring likean old-fashioned square-rigger in a beam sea. 

"If you'll marry me, that is, " he concluded in a breath, with obviousrelief if with a countenance oddly shadowed in the staring moonlightby the heat of his distress. 

She tried, she meant to give him his answer without delay; it werekinder. But she found it impossible; the negative stuck stubbornly inher throat. She knew it would stab him deep. He wasn't the man to takelove lightly; his emotions were anything but on the surface; theirwounds would be slow to heal. 

And in spite of the positive animus she had all along entertainedtoward him, she didn't want to hurt him now; perhaps not strangely, remembering that this proposal of marriage was a direct, down-rightprotestation of implicit faith in her, uttered squarely on top of amost damnable indictment--remembering, too, that it was barelytwo hours since Sally herself had been ready, almost eager, to believehim capable of committing the very crime of implication in which heexonerated her without an instant's hesitation. 

True, she had been quick to exonerate him in her thoughts as soon asthe suspicion was engendered in them, but she had done so almostreluctantly, ungenerously, not because she wanted to believe himinnocent, but because the burden of the evidence, together with thecounsel of instinct, had been too strong in his favour to permit morethan a moment's doubt. And she had repented; but that, it appeared, was not enough; she must be punished in this unique way, have her ownunworthiness demonstrated by this artless manifestation of his worth. And however much she might long to make amends to him, she couldn't. 

The pain and the pity of it! He was a far better man than she a woman, and he honoured her with his love--and she couldn't requite him, shecouldn't love him; he was still too far from the mirage of her ideal. 

"Oh!" she sighed. "Why?"

He misconstrued. "I've told you heaps of times--because you're awoman, not a manikin. Marriage would mean something more to you thanclothes, Europe, idleness, and flirting with other women'shusbands, just as it would have to mean more to me than hiring a womanto live with me and entertain my friends. "

"How do you know? How can you tell? What do you know about me?" sheprotested almost passionately, and answered herself. "You don't know;you can't tell; you know nothing about me. You assert things--I onlywish they were true--"

"Oh, they're true enough, " he interrupted unceremoniously. "It's nouse trying to run yourself down to me. I couldn't feel the way I doabout you if you were not at heart as sound as an apple, no matterwhat nonsense you may have been guilty of at one time or another, asevery human being's got to be. "

"Has nobody told you anything about me? Mrs. Gosnold--?"

"Mrs. Gosnold 'tends to her own knitting. And nobody has told meanything--except yourself. More than that, I don't go by other folks'opinions when I make up my mind about a matter as vital to me asmarrying a wife. "

"Then I must tell you--"

"Not until you give me some legitimate title to your confidence. You've got no right to confide in me unless you mean to marry me--andyou haven't said you would yet. "

"I can't--I couldn't without telling you--please let me speak!"She drew a long breath of desperation and grasped the nettle firmly. "I stole the clothes I came here in. My name isn't Manwaring--it'sSally Manvers. I was a shop-girl--"

"Half a minute. Mrs. Gosnold knows all this, doesn't she?"

"Yes--"

"You told her everything, and still she stood for you?"

"Yes, but--"

"That's enough for me. I don't want to hear anything more until you'remy wife. After that you'll have to tell me--and if there's any troubleremaining to be straightened out then, why, it'll be my natural job asa husband to fix it up for you. Till then I won't listen to any moreof your confidences that have nothing whatever to do with the factthat I love you and believe in you and want to make you happy. "

"But don't you understand that a girl who would steal and lie in orderto get into society--"

"Oh, everybody's got to be foolish about something or other. You'llget over this social craze. The more you see of it the more sure yourcure. Now don't mistake me; I'm not for an instant implying that someof the finest people that ever walked God's green earth don't figurein what we call Society; and there are more of them on this littleisland, perhaps, than anywhere else in America; and I'd be thelast to cry them down or pretend I'm not glad and proud of theiracquaintance and friendship. The trouble is, they can't in the natureof things keep up their social order without attracting a cloud ofparasites, snobs, and toadies--and that's what makes me sick of thewhole social game as practised to-day. "

"And you can't understand that I am precisely what you've described--aparasite!"

"You couldn't be if you wanted to. Maybe you think you could, butyou're wrong; you haven't got it in you. "

Against such infatuation candour was powerless. She retreated to thelast ditch. "But you told me your father's heart was set on yourmarrying a society woman!"

"Well, what of that? You don't suppose I think any of them have gotanything on you, do you? Besides, dad isn't altogether an old idiot, and if the kind of society woman he wants me to marry wouldn't look atme, and if my happiness is at stake . . . Well, even if he did want toruin my life by hitching me up in double harness to a clothes-horse, I wouldn't let him!"

"But if I want--"

"There isn't anything you want that I can't get you. If you like thissort of thing, you shall have it. And don't run away with theidea that I'm not strong for society myself--the right sort. "

Her gesture was hopeless. "What can I say to you?"

He suggested quietly, not without humour: "If you don't mind, sayyes. "

"You don't know what you're doing, making me such an offer. Suppose Imarried you for your money . . . "

"You won't do that. You can't. "

"What do you mean?"

"You've got to love me first. And you're too fine and honest topretend that for the sake of my money. "

Of a sudden his tone changed. "Oh, forgive me!" he pleaded. "I was afool to ask. I might have known--I did know you didn't care for me. Only, I hoped, and I guess a man in love can't help letting his hopesmake him foolish, especially when he sees the girl in trouble of somesort, needing what he can give her, love and protection--and when it'smoonlight and there's music in the air!"

He checked himself with a lifted hand and stood for a moment, halfsmiling, as if made suddenly conscious of the pulsing rapture of thoseremote violins. 

"_That's_ what's made all the mischief, " he complained: "that, and the way you look. It isn't a fair combination to work on a fellow, you know. Please don't say anything; you've said enough. I know verywell what you mean, but I'd rather not hear it in one word of twoletters--not to-night. I'm just foolish enough to prefer to go onhoping for a while, believing there was a bare chance I hadmisunderstood you. "

He laughed half-heartedly, said "Good night" with an admirable air ofaccepting his dismissal as a matter of course, and marched off asabruptly as if reminded of an overdue appointment. 

No other manoeuvre could have been more shrewdly calculated to advancehis cause; nothing makes so compelling an appeal to femininesympathies as a rejected suitor taking his punishment like a man; theemotional affinity of pity has been established ever since theinvention of love. 

Sally sank down mechanically upon a little marble seat near the spotwhere they had stood talking and stared without conscious vision outover the silvered sea. 

Her thoughts were vastly unconcerned with the mysterious behaviour ofMrs. Standish and her brother, the inexplicable insolence of MercedesPride, the shattered bubble of her affair with Donald Lyttleton, thekindness of Mrs. Gosnold, or the riddle of the vanished jewelry. 

Now and again people passed her and gave her curious glances. She paidthem no heed. The fact that they went in pairs, male and female aftertheir kind, failed to re-excite envy in her bosom. 

There is deep satisfaction to be distilled from consciousness of thelove of even an unwelcome lover. 

She thought no longer unkindly but rather pitifully of poor, tactless, rough-shod Mr. Trego. 

When at length she stirred and rose it was with a regretful sigh that, matters being as they were with her, she was unable to reward hisdevotion with something warmer than friendship only. 

Friendship, of course, she could no more deny the poor man. . . . 

CHAPTER XV

FALSE WITNESS

Sally failed, however, fully to appreciate how long it was that shehad rested there, moveless upon that secluded marble seat, spellboundin the preoccupation of those thoughts, at once long and sweet withthe comfort of a solaced self-esteem, for which she had to thank theauthor of her first proposal of marriage. 

She rose and turned back to Gosnold House only on the prompting ofinstinct, vaguely conscious that the night had now turned its nadirand the time was drawing near when she must present herself first toher employer with the tale of last night's doings, then to Savage tolearn his version of the happenings in New York. 

But by the time she reminded herself of these two matters she foundthat they had receded to a status of strangely diminished importancein her understanding. It was her duty, of course, a duty imposed uponher by her dependent position as much as by her affection for thelady, to tell Mrs. Gosnold all she knew without any reservationwhatever; and it was equally her duty to herself, as a matter ofcommon self-protection, to hear what Savage professed such anxiety tocommunicate. And not quite definitely realising that it was Mr. Trego's passion which overshadowed both of these businesses, shewondered mildly at her unconcern with either. Somehow she would gladlyhave sealed both lips and ears to them and gone on baskinguninterruptedly in the warmth of her sudden self-complacence. 

By no means the least remarkable property of the common phenomenon oflove is the contentment which it never fails to kindle in the bosom ofits object, regardless of its source. In a world where love is farmore general than aversion, wherein the most hateful and hideous isfrequently the most beloved, it remains true that even a king willstrut with added arrogance because of the ardent glance of aserving-wench. 

And so, failing to realise her tardiness, it was not unnatural thatSally, entering the house by that historic side door and ascending thestaircase that led directly to her bedchamber, should think to stop amoment and consult the mirror for confirmation of Mr. Trego's implicitcompliments. 

As one result of this action, instigated in the first instance less byvanity than by desire to avoid the crowds at the main entrances, Sally uncovered another facet of mystery. 

On entering, she left the side door heedlessly ajar, and there wasenough air astir to shut it with a bang as she turned up thestaircase. Two seconds later that bang was echoed by a door above, anda quick patter of light footfalls followed. But by the time Sallygained the landing there was no one visible in the length of thecorridor from end to end of that wing. 

Now the door of the room opposite her was wide open on a darkinterior. And the room adjoining was untenanted, as she knew. Itseemed impossible that the second slam could have been caused by anydoor other than that of her own bedchamber. Yet why should anyone havetrespassed there but one of the housemaids? And if the trespasser hadbeen a housemaid, why that sudden and furtive flight and swiftdisappearance from the corridor?

Her speculations on this point were both indefinite and short-lived. She thought her hearing must have deceived her; a hasty look round theroom discovered nothing superficially out of place, and the littlegilt clock on her dressing-table told her that she was already sevenminutes behind time. She delayed only for one hasty survey of theflushed face with star-bright eyes that the mirror revealed, and thenwith an inarticulate reflection that, after all, one couldhardly blame Mr. Trego very severely, Sally caught up her long darkcloak and made off down the corridor, past the head of the mainstaircase, to the door of Mrs. Gosnold's boudoir. 

A voice sharp with vexation answered her knock; she entered to findits owner fuming, and not only that, but surprisingly _en déshabillé_. The dress of Queen Elizabeth was gone, and Mrs. Gosnold stood on thethreshold of her bedchamber clothed simply in undergarments andimpatience. 

"Why are you so late?" she demanded. "I was beginning to be afraid . . . But thank Heaven you're here! You very nearly spoiled everything, but there's still time. Come in. "

She led the way into her bedchamber, and without acknowledging Sally'smurmur of startled apology, waved an impetuous hand at her. 

"Quick!" she demanded. "Get out of that costume at once!"

Her maid was already at Sally's side, fumbling with pins and hooks, before the girl recovered from her astonishment sufficiently to seekenlightenment. 

"But what's the matter? What have I done? What--?"

"Nothing much--merely almost upset the applecart for me!" Mrs. Gosnoldlaughed in grim humour, her own fingers busily aiding the maid's. "Come, step out of that skirt, please. If you'd been two minuteslater . . . I'm simply going to pretend I'm you for ten minutes orso, " she explained, lowering the shimmering gray Quaker skirt over herown shoulders. "I'm going to meet Walter Savage in your stead. "

"But--"

"But me no buts. I heard enough there at the window, before you cameon the scene, to make me very suspicious of that young rascal, evenmore so than I had every right to be from what you had told me. Now Imean to learn the rest, find out precisely what devilment he's up to. "

"He only wants to tell me--"

"There's nothing he can possibly have to say to you that he couldn'thave said a hundred times tonight in as many corners of the house andgrounds without a soul hearing a word or thinking it odd that twoyoung people should be exchanging confidences--and both of you maskedinto the bargain. "

Sally, now entirely divested of her masquerade, resignedly shruggedherself into the black silk cloak for lack of a better negligee. 

"I don't understand what you can suspect, " she said dubiously. 

"I don't suspect anything; but I'm going to find out everything. "

"But aren't you afraid--"

"Of what, pray'?" Mrs. Gosnold demanded with appropriate asperity. 

"I mean, don't you think he'll know?"

"Nothing in the shadow of those trees, with my mask and that cape todisguise the fact that I'm a bit more matronly than yourself--worseluck!"

"But your voice--"

"Haven't you ever read about 'guarded accents' in novels? Those willbe mine, precisely, when I talk to my graceless nephew. I shan't speakonce above a whisper--and I defy any man to tell my whisper from yoursor any other woman's for that matter. Don't flatter yourself, my dear!I shall fool him perfectly; there's precious little to choose betweenany two women in the dark!"

Already she was almost finished dressing, and as yet Sally hadn't hada chance to breathe a word about her own information. 

"But there's something I must tell you, " she insisted, suddenlyreminded. 

"About what?"

"Last night--things that happened after everybody had gone to bed. Youknew I was restless. I saw several things I haven't told you about. You ought to know. They may clear up the mystery of the theft. "

"I already know all about that, " Mrs. Gosnold declared calmly. 

"About Mr. Lyttleton and the boat and the signals--"

Mrs. Gosnold turned sharply from her mirror. "What's this? Why didn'tyou tell me before?"

"I didn't know about the robbery, and I thought it was none of myaffair--"

"It doesn't matter. " Mrs. Gosnold caught up her cloak and threw it tothe maid to adjust on her shoulders. "Whatever you saw had nothing todo with the robbery. Don Lyttleton's a bad lot in more ways than one, but he didn't steal my jewels last night--that I know. "

"But who did?"

"I hope you may never find out. "

"You know, then?"

"Positively. " The lady adjusted her mask and caught her cloak abouther. "Wait here till I come back. Then you may tell me about DonLyttleton and the boat and the signals. I'll be as quick as I can. "

She darted hurriedly away. 

The wonder excited by Mrs. Gosnold's declaration that she knew theidentity of the thief--even though, the girl told herself, she had allalong suspected as much--kept Sally quiet for the next severalminutes. She was sorely tempted to question the maid, but one look atthat quiet, impassive countenance assured her that this would bewasted breath. 

Insensibly the tempo of a haunting waltz that sang clear in the nightbeyond the open windows wove itself into the texture of Sally'sthoughts and set her blood tingling in response. 

She recalled Trego with a recurrent glow of gratification. 

Poor fellow!

One foot began to tap the floor in time to the music. She hadn'tdanced once that night, had purposely avoided every chance of aninvitation to dance. And now, of a sudden, she wanted to, withoutreason or excuse. 

It was very curious. She wondered at herself. What had worked thischange? Was it really nothing more nor less than a declaration of loveon the part of a man she--didn't altogether like?

Though, of course, she hadn't ever been quite fair to him. He hadadmirable qualities. His honesty. His scorn of pretence andsubterfuge. His simple faith in Sally Manvers, however misplaced. 

If he were to beg a dance when Mrs. Gosnold had returned and Sally, recostumed, had rejoined the maskers, she hardly knew how she could indecency refuse him now. . . . 

The clock on the mantelpiece struck a single stroke. 

Sally started and looked up, to meet Marie's questioning glance. 

"One o' clock?"

"Yes, Miss Manwaring. "

"Then--why, she's been gone over fifteen minutes. "

"Yes, miss. "

What could Savage have found to say to Sally that her substitute needdelay so long to hear it?

Sally frowned. 

At the end of another five minutes the maid volunteered uneasily:"It's very odd. Mrs. Gosnold didn't expect to be away more than fiveor ten minutes, I know. She said as much before you came in. "

Sally got up and went to a window which overlooked the driveway andlawn. Parting the curtains, she glanced out. The lawn was fair withmoonlight, the driveway silver-blue, the woods behind dark and still. There was a closed car waiting at one side of the porte-cochere. Theothers--all those belonging to Gosnold House, as well as those ofguests for the fete--were hidden among the trees bordering the road orparked in the open spaces around the garage and stables at aconsiderable remove from the house. 

There was no one to be seen on the lawn or drive, no hurrying figurecloaked in Quaker grey. 

After some minutes of fruitless watching Sally ventured doubtfully:"What time is it?"

"Ten past one, miss. "

"Nearly half an hour--"

"Yes, miss. "

"Do you think Mrs. Gosnold would mind if you went to make sure she wasall right?"

"I don't know, Miss Manwaring. She doesn't like interference, if I maymake so bold as to say so. "

A little later, however, the woman added tentatively: "I wouldn't careto take the responsibility, myself, of going to see. "

"But if I order you to go--"

"Yes, miss, " Marie smiled. 

"Then I do order you to go. But don't be long. "

"No, miss. "

Sally waited in a mood of constantly increasing anxiety. It was absurdto think that anything untoward could have happened to Mrs. Gosnold onher own grounds, meeting her own nephew for a clandestine talk. And ofcourse she might have learned something from Savage which had inducedher, for her own ends, to maintain her masquerade for a longer time. She was quite possibly somewhere on the terrace or in the formalgarden. 

Marie was back within five minutes, wearing an apprehensivecountenance. 

"There's nobody out back, miss, near the road, where she said she wasto meet Mr. Savage, and I asked Thomas and some of the waiters, and they all said they hadn't seen her. "

"But in my costume and masked . . . "

"It's past one, miss, already, and everybody has unmasked. "

"To be sure. I'm going to my room and get into another dress. ThenI'll look round for her myself. "

"If you'll be so kind, miss--without letting on--"

"Of course. "

"Mrs. Gosnold would be very indignant if any mistake was made. "

Sally caught her cloak tightly about her, and because of itsunconventionality as a costume, resumed her mask against the chance ofmeeting anybody in her passage through the corridor to the far wing ofthe building. 

She fairly ran in her impatience, and through this haste was broughtto the head of the main staircase at the precise moment when anunmasked Harlequin was about to set foot upon the upper landing. 

Mr. Savage was smiling quietly to himself and slapping his calveslightly with his lath-sword; nothing in his manner excused thesuspicion that he was not perfectly satisfied with himself and all hiscircumstances. 

Somewhat reassured by the vision of this amiable countenance, Sallypaused, and won a glance of quizzical inquiry, with especialapplication to the mask which she still wore in defiance of the rule. 

But when she spoke in her natural voice that look was erased from thefeatures of Mr. Savage as chalk-marks may be erased from a blackboard. 

"Oh, Mr. Savage, if you please--"

"Wha-at!" the man ejaculated blankly, stopping short and dropping hismake-believe weapon. 

"I'm looking for Mrs. Gosnold. Have you seen her anywhere about?"

"Mrs. Gos--! Aunt Abby!" He choked and gasped. "But you--who are you?"

"I thought you must know my voice. "

Sally removed her mask, and incontinently Savage fell back against thebanister-rail and grasped it for support. 

"Miss Manvers! But--what--how the devil did you get back here?"

"I haven't been out. "

She pulled up on the verge of frank explanation; it was quite possiblethat Mrs. Gosnold might furiously resent betrayal of her stratagem. And yet Savage's look of pure fright only augmented Sally's solicitudefor her employer. 

"You haven't been out! But ten minutes ago--out there--behind thetrees--"

She shook her head and tried to smile a superior sort of a smile: "Itwasn't I who met you. "

The man made a gesture of hopeless confusion, and she could not butremark his surprising loss of colour. Suddenly he stepped to her sideand seized her roughly by the arm. 

"Then who was it'?" he demanded furiously. "If it wasn't you--whothen? Damn it, you'd better tell me--!"

"Let go my arm!" she demanded with a flash of temper that was instantlyrespected. "If you must know, " she went on, reckless at consequences, "it was your aunt who met and talked to you out there. Don't youunderstand? She borrowed my costume and went to meet you in my place. "

"Oh, my God!"

Savage was now chalky pale. He seemed to strive, to say more, butfailed for the constriction of his throat. For another instant hestared incredulously, then, without a word of explanation or apology, he turned and flung himself headlong down the steps!

Before reaching the middle landing, however, he checked himself on thereflection that he must avoid attracting attention, and went on moreslowly, if still with many a symptom of nervous haste. 

At the bottom he turned aside and was quickly lost in, the crowd. 

Unable to pursue, dressed as she was, Sally went on to her room in amood of dark perplexity. 

Surely it would seem that Savage must have been engaged in somevery damnable business indeed, and have given himself awayirremediably to Mrs. Gosnold, thinking her Sally, to exhibit suchunmitigated consternation on discovery of his error. 

But what could it have been? Sally could imagine nothing in theiradmittedly singular relations which, being disclosed to the aunt, should so completely confound the nephew. 

Mrs. Gosnold had suggested no insufferable resentment of the deceptionpractised upon her, when informed of it by Sally. And why, therefore, Mr. Savage should comport himself as if the heavens had fallen onlearning that he had betrayed himself unconsciously to his aunt, wassomething that passed Sally's comprehension. 

And the strange flavour of the affair alarmed her: first, Mrs. Gosnold's unexplained (but, after all, not inexplicable) failure toreturn to her room on time; then this panic of Savage's. 

It was patently the girl's immediate business to find one or the otheror both of them and make sure that nothing was radically wrong afterall. 

By happy chance her very prettiest evening frock didn't hook up theback; she was able to struggle into it not only without assistance, but within a very few minutes. 

Then, scurrying back to Mrs. Gosnold's room, she read in theapprehensive eyes of the maid, even before this last couldspeak, the news that the mistress was still missing, and so, dartingdown-stairs, began industriously to search the house and grounds. 

By this hour few signs were wanting that the festival was on its wane;already cars were arriving and departing, laden with the very youngestand the oldest people; there was perceptibly more room on thedancing-floor of the veranda, which was populated chiefly by theyounger set; in the supper-room the more rowdy crowd hung on withnumbers undiminished and enthusiasm unabated if liberally dampened;about the grounds there was far less movement, far more lingering insequestered nooks and shadows. Ecstatica, for one, had folded hertent, liberated her black cat to the life of a convinced misogynist, and vanished into the shades of night. 

But nowhere was any sign to be found of anyone of those three whomSally sought--Mrs. Gosnold or Savage or, failing these, Mrs. Standish. 

Now when she had nearly completed one exhaustive round of the groundsand was wondering where next to turn, with neither warning norexpectation she came around one end of a screen of shrubbery andstopped just short of surprising another sentimental tableau, stagedin the identical setting used for Mr. Trego's declaration and castwith a change of but one mummer. 

And in the instant marked by recognition of that selfsame marbleseat commanding that same view of silvered sea and bathed in the lightof that same heartless moon, Sally seemed to hear the echo of herdestiny's sardonic laughter. 

The gentleman was Mr. Trego, the lady Mrs. Artemas; and they wereignorant of Sally's observation for the simple reason that Mr. Trego'sback was toward her and the head of Mrs. Artemas was pillowed on hisshoulder--her arms white bonds around his neck. 

And as if this were not enough, Sally's discovery of them anticipatedby the barest moment the appearance of another couple around thefarther end of the clump of shrubbery--two people who happened to behusband and wife and known to Sally as recent additions to thehouse-party. 

These, too, stopped sharply and would have considerately withdrawn butfor the fact that, standing as he did, Trego could not help seeingthem. He spoke a word, presumably, in the ear so near his lips. Thewoman swung away in a twinkling, breaking from his arms but retainingone of his hands, and faced the two with a little excited laugh thatsounded almost hysterical; and Sally noted that her eyes were brightwith tears--of happiness, of course. 

"Oh!" she cried, laughing and confused, "is it you, Mrs. Warrenden?No, please don't run. It's too late now--isn't it--when you've caughtus in the act! You and Mr. Warrenden will be the first to knowof our happiness . . . "

Sally heard no more. The scene vanished from her vision as if themoonlight had been extinguished. It was some moments before sherealised that she was running madly, as if hoping flight might helpher exorcise that ironic vision. But when she did realise what she wasdoing, she but ran the faster; let people think what they would; sheno longer cared; their esteem no more mattered, for she was finishedwith them one and all--yes, even with Mrs. Gosnold!

Blindly instinct led her back to her room, again via that side door. 

She flung tempestuously into its friendly darkness, locked herself in, and dropped, spent and racked, upon the edge of the bed, clenching herhands into two hard, tight fists, gritting her teeth, and fightingwith all her strength to keep back the storm that threatened of sobsand tears and nervous laughter. 

It wasn't as if she had really cared for the man--it was worse. Itwas the sum of all the blows her poor, struggling pride had sufferedin the course of the last twenty-four hours, beginning with herawakening to the worthlessness of Lyttleton and realisation of the lowesteem in which he held her, and culminating in this facer from onewhose love she had refused but none the less prized for thecomfort it gave her. 

Nor was this all. In addition to the writhings of an exacerbatedvanity, she was conscious of a sense of personal loss, as if alandmark had been razed in the perspective of her life. In spite ofthose faults and shortcomings, so unduly emphasised through the man'sown deliberate intent and so inexcusable in one who appreciated sowell what was expected of a man in his position, Sally hadsubconsciously from the very first felt Trego to be one whose faithand loyalty were as a rock, whose friendship might be counted upon asan enduring tower of refuge. 

And to have him go from her, protesting passionate patience, leavingher exalted with the consciousness that she was wanted--to have him gothus from her and straightway fall into the trap which Mrs. Artemasunaffectedly baited--the trap of which he had not once but many timesobliquely alluded to in half-humorous, half-genuine terms of fear--itwas, or seemed to be, intolerable. 

The waves of burning emotion that swept and scorched her werealternately of rage and chagrin. 

Granted the opportunity, she could easily conceive herself as dealingvery vigorously with the mantrap. 

Some one rattled the knob of her door. Startled, Sally jumped up, andwith her wadded handkerchief dabbed hastily and superfluously ather eyes, which were quite dry as yet. 

She did not answer, but eyed apprehensively the dark recess in whichthe door was set at the end of her unlighted room. 

A knock followed the noise of the knob. Still she hesitated to reply. Uncertainly she moved toward the nearest wall-sconce and lifted herhand to the switch. She was sadly confused and unstrung, her thoughtsawhirl and nerves ajangle. The last thing she wished just then was tomeet and talk to anybody. 

Still it might be Mrs. Gosnold or her messenger. And that lady wasSally's one remaining friend on earth. She swallowed hard, tookherself firmly in hand, and when the knock was repeated was able toanswer in a tolerably even voice:

"Well? Who is it?"

"Miss Manwaring, are you there?" Heartfelt relief informed the voiceof Mrs. Standish. "Please let me in. I must speak with youimmediately. "

Sullenly, without replying, Sally turned on the light, moved to thedoor, unlocked and opened it. 

"Come in, " she said ungraciously. 

Mrs. Standish swept in, gay crimson domino over fluffy skirts andslim, pink legs assorting oddly with the agitation betrayed by herunsmiling eyes, her pallor accentuating the rouge on her cheekslike rose-petals against snow. 

"Thank God!" she whispered, "I've found you at last. I've lookedeverywhere for the last half-hour. This is the second time I've beenhere. You just got in, of course. Where _have_ you been?"

"Does it matter?" Sally fenced, maintaining a stony countenance. "Imean, I don't think it does, now you've run me to earth at last. What's the trouble?"

"You haven't seen Walter'? He hasn't told you?"

"No; I tried to speak to him half an hour ago, but he ran from me asif I were a ghost!"

"You know why!" The woman's voice trembled with restrained rage. "Youimpossible girl! Why, why did you let Aunt Abby go to meet him insteadof you? It was fatal, it was criminal. Of course, he gave the wholeshow away to her, never guessing. Now it's all up with us; we'll neverbe asked here again; and the chances are she'll cut us out of her willas well. Why did you do it? Oh, I could shake you!"

"I know well you would if you could, " Sally admitted calmly. "Only--better not try. "

"But why--?"

"Well, if you must know, Mrs. Gosnold overheard you three plottingtogether out there just before I came on the scene. She was atthe window overhead, listening through the shutters. I don't know whatyou were talking about--she didn't tell me--but it was enough to makeher insist on my giving her my costume so that she might go and hearthe rest of it. "

Mrs. Standish bit her lip. And her eyes shifted uneasily from Sally'sface. 

"You haven't seen her since--"

"No, " Sally answered bluntly. "Have you?"

"No. Walter and I have both been looking for her as well as you. That's why he ran when he knew about this terrible mistake; he wantedto find her and set things straight if he could. But she"--the womanstumbled and her eyes shifted again--"she's gone and hiddenherself--plotting our humiliation and punishment, I dare say. I onlywish I knew. Walter is still hunting everywhere for her. See here: Ipresume you understand you've got to go now?"

"Why?"

"For one good reason--if what has happened isn't enough to persuadeyou--because there will be a man here from New York by the firstboat--seven o'clock to-morrow morning--with a warrant for the arrestof Sarah Manvers. "

"Are you telling the truth, Mrs. Standish?"

"How dare you! No, I won't let you make me lose my temper withyour insolence. The matter is too serious, and I've no wish to see yousuffer, even if you have ruined everything for us. You must listen tome, Miss Manvers: be advised and go. I don't know what put them onyour trail, what made them suspect you were here, but theburglary-insurance people had the warrant sworn out yesterdayafternoon and started a man up by the evening boat. Walter got atelegram to that effect about ten o'clock. That's what he wanted tosay to you--that, and to give you some money and directions forgetting away. "

"But why should I leave?"

"Do you want to go to jail?"

"Not much. But I don't see why I need. You can easily explain that mythings in the bath-room were left there with your knowledge at thetime when you took pity on me and gave me a change of clothing totravel in. "

"It's too late. If we had explained it that way, to begin with, itwould have been all right. But neither of us thought. And Walterbungled things frightfully in New York. Now if we come forward withany such story they'll think we're all in a conspiracy to defraud thecompany. "

"Oh!" Sally exclaimed abruptly, with an accent of enlightenment thatdiscountenanced the older woman. 

With an effort, recovering, she sought to distract the girl. 

"Surely you must see now, you have got to go! There's a boat to themainland at six thirty. If you catch that, you'll have three hours'start; for the detective won't be able to get off the island beforehalf past nine. And you ought to be able to lose yourself in that timesomehow. Hurry; I'll help you pack a satchel. You'd better wear thatblue serge; everybody wears blue serge, so it's inconspicuous. Andhere's some money for travelling expenses. "

Sally ignored the little fold of bills held out to her. 

"I'm not going, " she declared firmly. 

"Are you mad?"

"I would be to go with the situation what it is here. Don't you seethat, unless those jewels are returned to Mrs. Gosnold to-night--yes, I mean the jewels you were so ready to accuse me of stealing a littlewhile ago; but you seem to have forgotten that now--"

"I wish you would, " Mrs. Standish replied, schooling her voice toaccents of dulcet entreaty. "I was beside myself with anxiety--"

"Wait. If I go before those jewels are recovered--disappear, as youwant me to--it will be equivalent to a confession that I myself stolethem. And suppose I did. "

"What!"

"I say, suppose I did, for the sake of argument. What right have youto assume that I didn't commit the theft? No more than you had toaccuse me as you did. And until the theft is made good, what righthave you to let me go and, possibly, get away with my loot? No!" Sallyshook her head. "You're not logical, you're not honest with me. There's something behind all this. I'm not going to be made ascapegoat for you. I'm not going to run away now and hide simply tofurther your plans for swindling the burglary-insurance company. I'llsee Mrs. Gosnold and advise with her before I stir a step. "

"Oh, you are insufferable!" Mrs. Standish cried. 

In a flash she lost control of her temper altogether. Her face grewghastly with the pallor of her rage. And she trembled visibly. 

But what else she might have said to the defiant girl was cut short bythe sudden and unceremonious opening of the door to admit threepersons. 

The first and last of these were Mercedes Pride and Mr. Lyttleton. Between them entered a man unknown to Sally--a hard-featured citizenin very ordinary business clothing, cold of eye, uncompromising ofmanner. 

Jubilation glowed in the witch's glance; anticipative relish of theflavour of triumph lent her voice a shriller note. She struck anattitude, singling out Sally with a denunciatory arm. 

"There she is! That's the woman who calls herself Sara Manwaring. Nowarrest her--make her confess what she's done with those jewels--packher off to jail!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE PLANT

The very sharpness of the attack shocked Sally into such apparent calmas she might not have been able even to simulate had she been givenmore time to prepare herself. 

After that first involuntary start of surprise and indignation shestood quite still, but with a defiant chin well elevated and hershoulders back, and if she had in her turn grown pale, it was lesswith fright than with the contained exasperation that lighted thefires in her eyes as they ranged from face to face of the four. 

Lyttleton, she noticed, lingered uneasily near the door, hanging hishead, avoiding her glance, almost frankly shamefaced. 

The spinster posed herself with arms akimbo and smirked superciliouslyat the badgered girl, malicious spite agleam in her little black eyes. 

Mrs. Standish had fallen back on the interruption and now half stood, half rested against the dressing-table, her passion of a moment agosedulously dissembled. She arched an inquiring eyebrow andsmiled an inscrutable smile, questioning the proceedings withoutaltogether disapproving them. 

Nearer Sally than any of these, the strange man confronted the girlsquarely, appraising her with an unprejudiced gaze. 

"If you please--" she appealed directly to him. 

"Miss Manwaring, I believe?" he responded with a slight, semi-diffident nod. 

Silently Sally inclined her head. 

"That's the name she gave when she came here, at least, " Mercedescommented. 

Sally addressed Lyttleton. "Please shut the door, " she said quietly, and as he obliged her, looked back to the stranger. 

"Mason's my name, miss, " he went on: "operative from Webb's PrivateInvestigation Agency, Boston. Mrs. Gosnold sent for me bylong-distance telephone this morning. I've been here all evening, working up this case on the quiet. The understanding was that I wasn'tto take any steps without her permission; but she left it to me to usemy best judgment in case her little plan for getting a confessiondidn't work. So I thought I'd better not wait any longer, seeing howlate it is and how long after the time limit she set--and all. "

"Do I understand Mrs. Gosnold gave you permission to break intomy room with--these people?" Sally demanded. 

"No, miss--not exactly. As I say, she told me to use my best judgmentin case the jewels weren't returned. And, as I've said, it was gettinglate, and Mrs. Gosnold nowhere to be found, and I thought I'd betterget busy. "

"Mrs. Gosnold has disappeared?"

"Well, you might call it that. Anyway, we can't seem to find any traceof her. I've got an idea that maid of hers knows something, but if shedoes she won't talk to me. And considering that, and everything--thecircumstances being so unusual all around--it seemed to be up to me totake some steps to make sure nothing was wrong. "

He faltered, patently embarrassed by a distasteful task. 

"Well?" Sally insisted coolly. "Still you've given me no reason forthis outrageous intrusion and accusation. "

"No, miss; I'm coming to that. You see, the first thing was to getthat letter-box opened and examine those envelopes. I got several ofthe gentlemen to act as a sort of a committee, so as nobody could kickon the ground that everything wasn't done open and aboveboard. "

"You found no confession, I gather?" Mrs. Standish interpolated. 

"No, ma'am--no confession. All but two of the cards were blank. Thetwo had something written on them--anonymous information, so to speak. I brought them along so that Miss Manwaring would understand, in casethere was any mistake, it wasn't my fault. "

He fumbled in a pocket, brought forth the cards, and with somehesitation handed them over to Sally. 

Both bore messages laboriously printed in pencil, of much the sametenor:

"_Suggest you look into Miss Manwaring's antecedents--also heractions between one and three o'clock last night_. "

"_Ask Miss Manwaring what she was doing out of bed after one lastnight--search of her room might prove helpful_. "

Silently Sally returned the cards. 

"You see, " the detective apologised heavily, "after that, there wasn'tanything for it but to ask you to explain. "

"There is nothing to explain; the charge is preposterous. "

"Yes, miss--that is, I hope so, for your sake. All the same, I had toask you. Most of the gentlemen present when I opened the envelopesseemed to think I ought to do something at once. Personally, I'drather have consulted Mrs. Gosnold before putting it up to you thisway. "

"I'm afraid you will find that would have been wiser. "

"Yes, miss, perhaps. But she being absent and no way of finding outwhen she was liable to be back and the case left in my hands, to acton my discretion, providing no confession was made--"

"Still, I advise you to wait. If you think you must do something, whynot employ your talents to find Mrs. Gosnold?"

"Well--that's so, too; and I would, only it was suggested that maybeshe hadn't disappeared really, but was just keeping out of sight untilthis business was settled, preferring not to be around when anythingunpleasant was pulled off. Like this. "

Sally shrugged. 

"Very well, " she said indifferently. "What then?"

"I'd like to ask you some questions. "

"Spare yourself the trouble. I shan't answer. "

"You might make things easier for all of us, miss, yourself included. "

"I promise faithfully, " Sally said, "to answer any questions you maycare to ask fully, freely, truthfully--in the presence of Mrs. Gosnold. Find her first. Until you do, I refuse to say a word. "

"I don't suppose you'd mind telling me how you came to get yourjob as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold. "

True to her word, Sally kept her lips tight shut. 

At this, Miss Pride felt called upon to volunteer: "Mrs. Standishought to be able to tell you that, Mr. Mason. She broughtMiss--Manwaring here. "

"I'm sure, " Mrs. Standish said with an elaborate air of indifference, "I know little or nothing about Miss Manwaring. " But Sally's regardwas ominous. She hesitated, apparently revising what she had at firstintended to say. "She came to me last week--the day we left NewYork--with a letter of recommendation purporting to be from Mrs. English--Mrs. Cornwallis English, the social worker, who is now inItaly. "

"Purporting?" iterated the detective. 

"Oh, I have no reason to believe it wasn't genuine, I'm sure. "

"Have you the letter handy'?"

"I don't think I have, " Mrs. Standish replied dubiously. "Perhaps. Ican't say. I'll have to look. I'm careless about such matters. "

"That's all you know about her?"

"Practically. She seemed pleasant-spoken and intelligent. I took afancy to her, gave her an outfit of clothing, brought her here andintroduced her to my aunt, who personally engaged her, understandingall the circumstances. That is the limit of my responsibility for MissManwaring. "

Sally drew a deep breath; at all events, the woman had not daredrepeat any of her former abominable accusations; if she wasunfriendly, she was also committed to a neutral attitude: no more talkof a forged letter, no more innuendo concerning Sally's "accomplice"of the night before. 

There was a pause. The detective scratched his head in doubt. 

"All this is very irregular, " he deprecated vaguely. 

Miss Pride opened her mouth to speak, but Lyttleton silenced her witha murmured word or two. She sniffed resentfully but held her peace. 

"I can't accept your apology;" Sally returned with dignity. "But I'msure you have no longer any excuse for annoying me. "

But Mr. Mason held his ground. "The trouble is, " he insisted, "afterthose cards had been read, one of the gentlemen said he had seen youout in the garden between two and three o'clock. "

"Mr. Lyttleton!" Sally accused with a lip of scorn. 

"Why, yes, " the detective admitted. 

Mrs. Standish made a furious gesture, but contrived to refrain fromspeech. 

"I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it, " Lyttleton said blandly, looking Sally straight in the face. "But the circumstances werepeculiar, to say the least, if not incriminating. I saw thiscloaked figure from my window. I thought its actions suspicious. Idressed hurriedly and ran down in time to intercept Miss Manwaring atan appointment with a strange man. I didn't see his face. He turnedand ran. While I was questioning Miss Manwaring Mr. Trego came up andmisconstrued the situation. We had a bit of a row, and before it wascleared up Miss Manwaring had escaped. "

Sally's sole comment was an "Oh!" that quivered with its burden ofloathing. 

"Sorry, " Lyttleton finished cheerfully; "but I felt I had to mentionit. I dare say the matter was innocent enough, but still MissManwaring hasn't explained it, so far as I know; I felt it my duty tospeak. "

To the inquiring attitude of the detective Sally responded simply:"Find Mrs. Gosnold. "

"Yes, miss, " he returned with the obstinacy of a slow-witted man. "Meantime, I guess you won't mind my looking round a bit, will you?"

"Looking round?"

"Your room, miss. "

Sally gasped. "You have the insolence to suggest searching my room?"

"Well, miss--"

"I forbid you positively to do anything of sort without Mrs. Gosnold'spermission. "

"There!" Miss Pride interpolated with sour satisfaction. "If she hasnothing to fear, why should she object?"

"Do be quiet, Mercedes, " Mrs. Standish advised sweetly. "MissManwaring is quite right to object, even if innocent. "

"You see, miss, " Mason persisted, "I have Mrs. Gosnold's authority tomake such investigation as I see fit. "

"I forbid you to touch anything in this room. "

"I'm sorry. I'd rather not. But it looks to me like my duty. "

She perceived at length that he was stubbornly bent on this outrageousthing. For a breath she contemplated dashing madly from the place, seeking Trego, and demanding his protection. 

But immediately, with a sharp pang, she was reminded that she might nolonger depend even on Trego. 

As the detective tentatively approached her dressing-table the girlswung a wicker armchair about so that it faced a corner of the roomand threw herself angrily into it, her back to the four. 

Immediately, as if nothing but her eye had prevented it theretofore, the search was instituted. 

She heard drawers opened and closed, sounds of rummaging. Shetrembled violently with impotent exasperation. It was intolerable, yetit must be endured. There was one satisfaction: they would findnothing, and presently Mrs. Gosnold would reappear and their insolencebe properly punished. 

She could not believe that Mrs. Gosnold would let it pass unrebuked. And yet . . . 

Of a sudden it was borne in upon the girl that she had found thislittle island world a heartless, selfish place, that she had yet tomeet one of its inhabitants by whom her faith and affection had notbeen betrayed, deceived and despised. 

Remembering this, dared she count upon even Mrs. Gosnold in this hourof greatest need?

Had that lady not, indeed, already failed her protegee by indulging inthe whim of this unaccountable disappearance?

Must one believe what had been suggested, that she, believing herconfidence misplaced in Sally, was merely keeping out of the way untilthe unhappy business had been accomplished and the putative cause ofit all removed from Gosnold House?

Behind her back the futile business of searching her room, soinevitably predestined to failure and confusion, was being vigorouslyprosecuted, to judge by the sounds that marked its progress. And fromthe shifting play of shadows upon the walls she had every reason tobelieve that Miss Pride was lending the detective a willing hand. Ifso, it was well in character; nothing could be more consistentwith the spinster's disposition than this eagerness to believe theworst of the woman she chose to consider her rival in the affectionsof Mrs. Gosnold. A pitiful, impotent, jealousy-bitten creature: Sallywas almost sorry for her, picturing the abashment of the woman whenher hopes proved fruitless, her, fawning overtures toward forgivenessand reconciliation. Possibly she had been one of the two to accuseSally on the cards. 

The other? Not Mrs. Standish. She would hardly direct suspicionagainst the girl she despised when by so doing she would imperil herown schemes. She was too keenly selfish to cut off her nose to spiteher face. Sally could imagine Mrs. Standish as remaining all thiswhile conspicuously aloof, overseeing the search with her habitualmanner of weary toleration, but inwardly more than a little tremulouswith fear lest the detective or Mercedes chance upon that jewel-caseand so upset her claim against the burglary-insurance concern. 

Lyttleton, too, would in all likelihood be standing aside, posing witha nonchalant shoulder against the wall, his slender, nicely manicuredfingers stroking his scrubby moustache (now that he had discarded thebeard of Sir Francis, together with his mask) and not quite hiding thesmirk of his contemptible satisfaction--the satisfaction of one whohad lied needlessly, meanly, out of sheer spite, and successfully, since his lie, being manufactured out of whole cloth, could never becontroverted save by the worthless word of the woman libelled. 

More than probably Lyttleton had been the other anonymous informant. 

And whatever the outcome of this sickening affair (Sally told herselfwith a shudder of disgust) she might thank her lucky stars for thisblessing, that she had been spared the unspeakable ignominy of notfinding Mr. Lyttleton out before it was too late. 

Trego, too; though she could consider a little more compassionatelythe poor figure Trego cut, with his pretensions to sturdy common sensedissipated and exposing the sentimentalist so susceptible that he wasunable to resist the blandishments of the first woman who chose to sether cap for him. Poor thing: he would suffer a punishment even beyondhis deserts when Mrs. Artemas had consummated her purpose and boundhim legally to her. 

For all that, Sally felt constrained to admit, Trego had been in ameasure right in his contention, though it had needed his folly topersuade her of his wisdom. She was out of her element here. And nowshe began to despair of ever learning to breathe with ease therarefied atmosphere of the socially elect. The stifling midsummer airthat stagnated in Huckster's Bargain Basement was preferable, heavythough it was with the smell of those to whom soap is a luxuryand frequently a luxury uncoveted; there, at least, sincerity andcharity did not suffocate and humbler virtues flourished. 

Bitterly Sally begrudged the concession that she had been wrong. Allalong she had nourished her ambition for the society of her betters onthe conviction that, with all her virtues, she was as good as anybody. To find that with all her faults she was better, struck a cruel blowat her pride. 

A low whistle interrupted at once her morose reflections and the muteactivity of the search. 

Immediately she heard the detective exclaim: "What's this?"

Miss Pride uttered a shrill cry of satisfaction; Mrs. Standish saidsharply: "Aunt Abby's solitaire!"

To this chorus Mr. Lyttleton added a drawl: "Well, I'm damned!"

Unable longer to contain her alarm and curiosity, Sally sprang fromher chair and confronted four accusing countenances. 

"What do you know about this?" the detective demanded. 

Clipped between his thumb and forefinger a huge diamond coruscated inthe light of the electrics. 

Momentarily the earth quaked beneath Sally's feet. 

Her eyes were fixed on the ring and blank with terror; her mouthdropped witlessly ajar; there was no more colour in her face than inthis paper; never a countenance spelled guilt more damningly thanhers. 

"Yes!" Miss Pride chimed in triumphantly. 

"_What_ have you to say to this, young woman?"

Sally heard, as if remotely, her own voice ask hoarsely: "What--whatis it'?"

"A diamond ring, " Mason responded obviously. 

"Aunt Abby's, " Mrs. Standish repeated. 

Mason glanced at this last: "You recognise it?"

The woman nodded. 

"Where did you find the thing?" Sally demanded. 

"Rolled up inside this pair of stockings. " Mason indicated the limp, black silk affairs which he had taken from a dresser-drawer. "Well, how about it?"

"I don't know anything about it. I tell you I never saw it before. "

The detective grinned incredulously. "Not even on Mrs. Gosnold'sfinger?"

"No--never anywhere. "

"Mrs. Gosnold seldom wears the ring. " Mrs. Standish put in; "but it isnone the less hers. "

"Well, where's the rest of the stuff'?" Mason insisted. 

"I don't know. I tell you, I know nothing about that ring. Ihave no idea how it got where you found it. Somebody must have put itthere. " Sally caught her distracted head between her hands and triedher best to compose herself. But it was useless; the evidence was toofrightfully clear against her; hysteria threatened. 

"Mrs. Standish gave me the stockings, " she stammered wildly, "rolledup as you found them. Ask her. "

"Oh, come, Miss Manwaring; you go too far!" Mrs. Standish told hercoldly. "If you are possibly innocent, compose yourself and prove it. If you are guilty, you may as well confess and not strain our patienceany longer. But don't try to drag me into the affair; I won't haveit. "

"I guess there isn't much question of innocence or guilt, " Masoncommented. "Here's evidence enough. It only remains to locate the restof the loot. It'll be easier for you, " he addressed Sally directly, "if you own up--come through with a straight story and save Mrs. Gosnold trouble and expense. "

He paused encouragingly, but Sally shook her head. 

"I can't tell you anything, " she protested. "I don't know anything. It's some horrible mistake. Or else--it's a plant to throw suspicionon me and divert it from the real thief. "

"Plant?" Miss Pride queried with a specious air of bewilderment. 

"Thieves' jargon--manufactured evidence, " Lyttleton explained. 

"Ah, yes, " said the old maid with a nod of satisfaction. 

"If it's a plant, it's up to you to show us, " Mason came back. "If itisn't, you may as well lead us to the rest of it quick. "

"You've looked everywhere, I presume?" Lyttleton inquired casually. 

"Everywhere I can think of in this room and the bath-room, " thedetective averred; "and I'm a pretty good little looker. That's mybusiness, of course. I'm willing to swear there's no more jewelryconcealed anywhere hereabouts. "

"Unless, perhaps, she's got it on her person. "

"That might be, of course, " Mason allowed, eying the girl critically. "But somehow I don't think so. If she had, why would she have leftthis one piece buried here? No; you'll find she's hidden the rest ofthe stuff somewhere--about the house or grounds, maybe--or passed iton to a confederate, the guy you saw her talking to last night, aslike as not and held out this ring to make sure of her bit when itcomes to a split-up. "

"Still, " Lyttleton persisted, "ought you to take any chances?"

"Well . . . " The detective shuffled with embarrassment. "Of course, " hesaid with brilliant inspiration, "if these ladies will undertake thejob . . . "

Miss Pride stirred smartly. "It's not what I want to do, " sheinsisted, "but if you insist, and on dear Abigail's account . . . "

With a tremendous effort Sally whipped her faculties together andtemporarily reasserted the normal outward aspect of her forceful self. 

"I will not be searched, " she said with determination. "With Mrs. Gosnold present--yes, anything. Find her, and I'll submit to anyindignity you can think of. But if Mrs. Standish and Miss Pride thinkI will permit them to search me in her absence . . . "

She laughed shortly. "They'd better not try it--that's all!" and onthis vague threat turned away and threw herself back into the chair. 

"I'm sure, " Miss Pride agreed, "I'd much rather not, for my part. Anddear Abigail is so peculiar. Perhaps it would be best to wait till shegets back. "

"Or hunt her up, " Lyttleton amended. 

"I guess you're right, " Mason agreed, a trace dubiously. 

"But what will you do with the girl in the meantime? Take her tojail?"

"No; I guess not yet--not until we see what Mrs. Gosnold thinks, anyway. She ought to be safe enough here. That door locks; we'll takethe key. She can't get out of the window without risking her neck--andif she did make a getaway uninjured, she can't leave the Island beforemorning. Let's move along, as you say, and see if we can't find Mrs. Gosnold. "

Skirts rustled behind Sally's sullen back and feet shuffled. Then thedoor closed softly and she heard the key rattle in the lock. 

She sat moveless, stunned, aghast. 

Strangely, she did not weep; her spirit was bruised beyond theconsolation of tears. 

The wall upon which her vacant vision focused was not more blanklywhite than her despair was blankly black. She was utterly bereft ofhope; no ray penetrated that bleak darkness which circumscribed herunderstanding. 

Now the last frail prop had been knocked from under her precariousfoothold in the faith and favour of Mrs. Gosnold. 

As to the identity of the enemy who had done this thing Sallyentertained not a shadow of doubt, though lacking this proof she couldnot have believed she owned one so vindictive, ruthless and fiendishlyingenious. 

But after what had happened it seemed most indisputable thatLyttleton, not content with avenging his overnight discomfitureby an unscrupulous lie, had deliberately plotted and planted thisadditional false evidence against the girl to the end that she mightbeat out her life against the stone walls of a penitentiary. 

For who would not believe his word against hers? Lyttleton had stolenthe jewels: what else had he carried so stealthily down to the beach?What else had those signals meant but that they had been left there ina prearranged spot? For what else had the boat put in from the yachtto the beach? As for the window of the signals, it might well havebeen Lyttleton's, which adjoined the row of three which Sally hadsettled upon; and she had delayed so long after seeing him disappearon the beach that he must have had ample time to return to his room, flash the electric lights, and come out again to trap the one he knewhad been watching him. 

And if he hadn't stolen the jewels, what else was that "privatematter" which he had been so anxious to keep quiet that he wasresigned to purchase Sally's silence even at the cost of making loveto her? And if not he, who had been the thief whose identity Mrs. Gosnold was so anxious to conceal that she had invented her sillyscheme for extracting an anonymous confession?--her statement to thecontrary notwithstanding that Lyttleton had not stolen thejewels and that she knew positively who had! The man was a favouriteof Mrs. Gosnold's; she had proved it too often by open indulgence ofhis nonsense. He amused her. And it seemed that in this milieu thevirtue of being amusing outweighed all vices. 

Why else had Mrs. Gosnold refused to listen to the story Sally was soanxious to tell her about her precious Don Lyttleton? She must haveknown, then, that Sally was under suspicion. Miss Pride had known it, or she would not have found the courage to accuse the girl under theguise of fortune-telling; and what Mercedes knew her dear Abigailunfailingly was made a party to. And knowing all this, still she hadsought to protect the man at the girl's expense. 

And all the while pretending to favour and protect the latter!

Now, doubtless, the truth of the matter would never come out. 

In panic terror Sally envisaged the barred window of the spinster'sprophecy. 

To this, then, had discontent with her lowly lot in life brought her, to the threshold of a felon's cell. 

Surely she was well paid out for her foolishness. . . . 

After some time she found that she had left her chair and wasranging wildly to and fro between the door and window. She halted, andthe mirror of her dressing-table mocked her with the counterfeitpresentment of herself, pallid and distraught in all the pettyprettiness of her borrowed finery. 

In a sudden seizure of passion she fairly tore the frock from herbody, wrecking it beyond repair. 

Then, calmed somewhat by reaction from this transport, she reflectedthat presently they would be coming to drag her off to jail, and shemust be dressed and ready. 

Turning to her wardrobe, she selected its soberest garments--the blueserge tailleur advised by Mrs. Standish--and donned them. 

This done, she packed a hand-bag with a few necessities, sat down, andwaited. 

The minutes of that vigil dragged like hours. 

She began to realise that it was growing very late. The guests of thefete had all departed. The music had long since been silenced. Lookingfrom her window, she saw the terrace and gardens cold and empty in themoonlight. 

And at this sight temptation to folly assailed her and the counsels ofdespair prevailed. 

There was none to prevent the attempt, and the drop from window-sillto turf was not more than twelve feet. She risked, it was true, asprained ankle, but she ran a chance of escaping. And even ifshe had to limp down to the beach, there were boats to be foundthere--rowboats drawn up on the sand--and there was the barepossibility that she might be able to row across the strait to themainland before her flight was discovered. 

And even if overtaken, she could be no worse off than she was. Everyone believed her guilty; there was no way for her to prove herinnocence. 

She might better chance the adventure. 

On frantic impulse, without giving herself time to weigh the dangers, Sally switched off her light, sat down on the window-sill, swung herlegs over, and let herself down until she hung by both hands from thesill. 

And then she repented. She was of a sudden terribly afraid. Remembering too late the high heels of her slippers, she discountedthe certainty of a turned ankle--which would hurt frightfully even ifit failed to incapacitate her totally. For the life of her she couldnot release her grasp, though all ready the drag of her weight wasbeginning to cause most perceptible aches in the muscles of her arms. 

She panted with fright--and caught her breath on a sob to hear herselfcalled softly from below. 

"Miss Manwaring! For the love of Mike--!"

Trego!

She looked down and confirmed recognition of his voice with thesight of his upturned face of amazement. He stood almost immediatelybeneath her. Heaven--or the hell that had brewed hermisadventures--alone knew where he had come from so inopportunely. Still, there he was. 

"What are you doing? What's the matter?" he called again--and againsoftly, so that his voice did not carry far. 

She wouldn't answer. For one thing, she couldn't think what to say. The explanation was at once obvious and unspeakably foolish. 

Her hands were slipping. She ground her teeth and kicked convulsively, but decorously, seeking a foothold that wasn't there on the smoothface of the wall. 

At this his tone changed. He came more nearly under and plantedhimself with wide-spread feet and outstretched arms. 

"You can't hold on there any longer, " he insisted. "Let go. Drop. I'llcatch you. "

Only the mortification of that prospect nerved her aching fingers toretain their grip as long as they did--which, however, was notoverlong. 

She felt herself slipping, remembered that she mustn't scream, whatever happened, experienced an instant of shuddering suspense, thenan instantaneous eternity wherein, paradoxically, part of her seemedstill to be clinging to the window-ledge while most of her wasspinning giddily down through a bottomless pit, saw the grinning moonreel dizzily in the blue vault of heaven--and with a little shocklanded squarely in the arms of Mr. Trego. 

He staggered widely, for she was a solidly constructed young person, but he recovered cleverly--and had the impudence to seem amused. Sally's first impression on regaining grasp of her wits was of hissmiling face, bent over hers, of a low chuckle, and then--to hercomplete stupefaction--that she was being kissed. 

He went about that business, having committed himself to it, in a mostbusiness-like fashion; he kissed (as he would have said) for keeps, kissed her lips hungrily, ardently, and most thoroughly; he had beenwanting to for a long time, and now that his time was come he made themost of it. 

She was at first too stunned and shocked to resist. And for anothermoment a curious medley of emotions kept her inert in his arms, ofwhich the most coherent was a lunatic notion that she, too, had beenwanting just this to happen, just this way, for the longest time. Andwhen at length she remembered and felt her anger mounting and wasready to struggle, he disappointingly set her down upon her feet. 

"There!" he said with satisfaction. "Now that's settled--and a goodjob, too!"

She turned on him furiously. 

"How dared you-!"

"Didn't I deserve it, catching you the way I did?" he asked, openinghis eyes in mock wonder. "And didn't you deserve it for being so sillyas to try anything like that?" He jerked his head too ward thatwindow. "What on earth possessed you--?"

"Don't you know? Don't you understand?" she stormed. "I'm accused ofstealing Mrs. Gosnold's jewels--locked up. You knew that surely!"

"What an infernal outrage!" he cried indignantly. "No, I didn't knowit. How would I? I"--he faltered--"I've been having troubles of myown. "

That drove in like a knife-thrust the memory of the scene in thegarden with Mrs. Artemas. The girl recoiled from him as from somethingindescribably loathsome. 

"Oh!" she cried in disgust, "you are too contemptible!"

A third voice cut short his retort, a hail from above. "Hello, downthere!"

With a start Sally looked up. Her window was alight again, andsomebody was leaning head and shoulders out. 

"Hello, I say! Is that the Manwaring woman '? Stop her; she's escapingarrest!"

Trego barred the way to the gardens; and that was as well (she thoughtin a flash) for now the only hope for her was to lose herselftemporarily in the shadows of the shrubbery. 

The thought of the trees that stood between the grounds and thehighway was vaguely in her mind with its invitation to shelter whenshe turned and darted like a hunted rabbit around the corner of thehouse. 

Before Trego regained sight of her she was on the lawns. Crossing themlike the shadow of a wind-sped cloud, she darted into the obscurity ofthe trees and vanished. And Mr. Trego, observing Mr. Lyttleton emergefrom under the porte-cochere and start in pursuit, paused long enoughdeftly to trip up that gentleman with all the good will imaginable andsent him sprawling. 

Frantic with fright, her being wholly obsessed by the one thought ofescape, Sally flew on down the drive until, on the point of leavingthe grounds by the gate to the highway, she pulled up perforce andjumped back in the nick of time to avoid disaster beneath the wheelsof a motor-car swinging inward at a reckless pace. 

Involuntarily she threw a forearm across her eyes to shield them fromthe blinding glare of the headlamps. In spite of this she wasrecognised and heard Mrs. Gosnold's startled voice crying out: "MissManwaring! Stop! Stop, I say!"

With grinding brakes the car lurched to a sudden halt. 

Weak, spent, and weary, the girl made no effort to consummate herescape, realising that it had been a forlorn hope at best. 

CHAPTER XVII

EXPOSE

Some little time later there filed into the boudoir of the hostess ofGosnold House a small but select troupe of strangely various tempers. 

Mrs. Gosnold herself led the way, portentous countenance matching wellher tread of inexorable purpose but in odd contrast to the demurefrivolity of her Quaker costume. 

Sally followed, nervously sullen of bearing toward all save heremployer. 

Mr. Walter Arden Savage came next, but at a respectable distance, avery hang-dog Harlequin indeed, a cigarette drooping disconsolatelyfrom the corner of his mouth. 

At the door he stood aside to give precedence to his sister, no longerColumbine, but a profoundly distressed and apprehensive blonde personin a particularly fetching negligee. 

Miss Pride alone wore her accustomed mien--of sprightlyspinsterhood--unruffled. 

Mr. Lyttleton was almost too much at ease; Mr. Mason wasexceedingly dubious; Mr. Trego was, for him, almost abnormally grave. 

This last, bringing up the rear of the procession, closed the halldoor at a sign from Mrs. Gosnold. The company found seatsconspicuously apart, with the exception of Mrs. Standish and Savage, likewise Mercedes, who stuck to her dear Abigail as per invariablecustom. Sally, on her part, found an aloof corner where she couldobserve without being conspicuous. 

"So, " said Mrs. Gosnold, taking her place beside the desk and rakingthe gathering with a forbidding eye. "Now if you will all be goodenough to humour me without interruption, I have some announcements tomake, some news to impart, and perhaps a question or two to ask. It'slate, and I'm tired and short of temper, so you needn't be afraid Iwon't make the proceedings as brief as possible. But there are certainmatters that must be settled before we go to bed to-night. "

She managed a dramatic pause very effectively, and then: "I've beenkidnapped, " she announced. 

Murmurs of astonishment rewarding her, she smiled grimly. 

"Kidnapped, " she iterated with a sort of ferocious relish. "At my age, too. I don't wonder you're surprised. I was. So were my kidnappers, when they found out who they were making off with. For, ofcourse, it was a mistake. They were conventional kidnappers, with not. An ounce of originality to bless themselves with, so naturally theyhad meant to kidnap a good-looking youngster--Miss Manwaring, infact. "

She nodded vigorous affirmation of the statement. "So I'm told, atleast; so Walter tells me; and he ought to know; he claims to havebeen the moving spirit in the affair. When he found out his mistake, of course, he posted off after me to rectify the hideous error, andarrived just in time to effect a dramatic rescue. And then he had toconfess. . . . 

"The whole business, " she went on, "from beginning to end, was verysimple, childishly simple. In fact, ridiculous. And sickening. You'renot going, Adele?" she interrupted herself as Mrs. Standish rose. 

Without answer her niece moved haughtily too ward the door. Mrs. Gosnold nodded to Trego. 

"Oh, yes, let her go. I'm sure I've no more use for her. But half aminute, Adele; the car will be ready to take you and Walter to thenine-thirty boat to-morrow morning. "

There was no answer. The door closed behind Mrs. Standish, and heraunt calmly continued:

"It seems that Adele's notorious extravagance got her into hot watershortly after she divorced Standish and had only her private means tosupport her insane passion for clothes and ostentation ingeneral. She went to money-lenders--usurers, in fact. And, of course, that only made it worse. Then Walter, who has never beenoverscrupulous, conceived the brilliant notion of squaring everythingup for a new start by swindling the burglary-insurance people. Adelehas always carried heavy insurance on her jewelry--almost the onlysensible habit she ever contracted. And so they conspired, like thetwo near-sighted idiots they were. . . . 

"On the afternoon of the day they were to start for the Island theygave all the servants a night off, and contrived to miss connectionwith the Sound steamer. Then they went to the Biltmore for dinner, andwhen it was dark Walter sneaked back home to burglarise the safe. Iunderstand he made a very amateurish job of it. Into the bargain, hewas observed. It seems that the servants had carelessly left thescuttle open to the roof, and Miss Manwaring, caught in athunder-storm, had taken shelter in the house--which was quite thenatural thing, and no blame to her. In addition, a real burglarpresently jimmied his way in, caught Walter in the act of rifling hisown safe, and forthwith assaulted him. Walter and the jewels were onlysaved by the intervention of Miss Manwaring, who very bravely pointeda pistol at the real burglar's head, and then, having aided Walter toturn the tables, ran away. So far, good; Walter booted theburglar out of the house, loaded up with the jewels, and left torejoin Adele. But fate would have it that he should meet MissManwaring again in the Grand Central Station. "

She paused for breath, then summed up with an amused smile: "There wasa most embarrassing contretemps: a broken desk and empty safe at hometo be accounted for, whether or not they attempted to swindle theinsurance company; and if they did make the attempt--and remember, they were desperate for money--a witness to be taken care of. Theycouldn't let Miss Manwaring go and tell the story of her adventurepromiscuously, as she had every right to if she chose, for if it gotto the ears of the insurance people their plot would fail, and theywere none too sure that they were not liable to be sent to jail forconspiracy with intent to defraud. So they cooked up a story toaccount for Miss Manwaring and brought her here, knowing that I hadrecently dismissed Miss Matring. And immediately, as was quite rightand proper, everything began to go wrong. 

"To begin with, the insurance people proved sceptical, largely throughWalter's stupidity. It seems that certain evidences had been left inthe house of Miss Manwaring's presence there with what we may call, Ipresume, Walter's permission, the fatal night. The servants whodiscovered the burglary noticed these evidences and mentioned them intheir telegram. Walter hurried back to New York to hush the servantsup. He wasn't successful, and the fact that he had endeavoured tocover something came to the attention of the police, and, inevitably, through them to the insurance company. 

"Then Miss Manwaring turned out to be a young woman of uncommoncharacter, less gullible than they had reckoned; also, I may saywithout undue self-conceit, they had underestimated me. I grewsuspicious, and questioned Miss Manwaring; she was too honest to wantto lie to me and too sensible to try. 

"Meantime the need of money grew daily more urgent. They decided thatWalter must pawn the jewels in Boston. They could be redeemed piece bypiece when money was more plentiful. But the jewels were here, andWalter in New York, and it would be insane for him to come here andget them and then take them to Boston. In his emergency Adele wentWalter one better in the matter of stupidity. She took Mr. Lyttletoninto her confidence--and, crowning blunder! took his advice. Mr. Lyttleton conceived a magnificently romantic scheme. Walter was tocome to New Bedford, secretly hire a motor-boat, and be off theharbour here at a certain hour of night. Mr. Lyttleton was toleave the jewels in a designated spot at the foot of the cliffs. At anagreed signal between the yacht and Adele's window Walter was to comein, at dead of night, and get the jewels, return to the mainland, discharge his boat, go to Boston, pawn the jewels, and be here in goodtime the next day. 

"Walter, notified of this arrangement by letter to New York, fell inwith it heart and soul. More stupidity, you see. Worse yet, he put itinto effect. The arrangement was actually carried out last night. Andagain their luck turned against them. It so happened that both MissManwaring and Mr. Trego were sleepless last night and observed certaindetails of the conspiracy; and to make matters worse, it was the verynight chosen by the thief to steal _my_ jewels. 

"When that came out they were all in panic--Walter, Adele, and Mr. Lyttleton. They put their empty heads together to think what was bestto be done to avert suspicion from themselves. Miss Manwaring was thereal stumbling-block. She knew far too much, and had proved ratherdifficult to manage. Among them they evolved another brilliant scheme:Miss Manwaring must be kidnapped and hidden away in a safe place untilthe trouble had blown over. Miss Manwaring having ostensibly confessedher guilt by flight, suspicion of complicity in the theft would bediverted from Walter, Adele, and Lyttleton; though they hadpositively no hand in the thing, they lacked the courage of theirinnocence, and they argued that, when in their own good time they setthe girl at liberty, she would be wanted by the police and would neveragain dare show her face where it might be recognised. Not onlystupid, you see, but cold-bloodedly selfish as well. 

"Walter undertook to manage the business. He hired a rascallychauffeur of his acquaintance and commandeered a closed car from myown garage, figuring that the kidnapping would be an accomplished factlong before the machine could be wanted, while its absence would neverarouse comment on a fete night. He then induced Miss Manwaring toconsent to meet him in a conveniently secluded spot near the gates. Ioverheard something, enough to lead me to suspect there was somethingwrong afoot, and therefore persuaded Miss Manwaring to lend me thiscostume of hers and went to meet Walter in her stead. Before I guessedwhat was up a bag was thrown over my head, my hands and feet werebound, and I was lifted into the body of the car and driven away atsuch speed that Walter, who found out his mistake almost immediately, was unable to overtake me before I arrived at the spot chosen for MissManwaring's prison--a deserted shooting-lodge on the South Shore. "

"Meantime, when it was found that I had been kidnapped instead of thegirl, and while Walter was going to fetch me and make what amends hecould, Adele and Mr. Lyttleton lost their heads entirely. Adele rushedround looking for Miss Manwaring, and when finally she found her, endeavoured to induce her to run away on her own account. And Mr. Lyttleton (who, by the by, will be leaving with Adele and Walter inthe morning) on his own behalf arranged to direct suspicion of therobbery to Miss Manwaring, induced Mr. Mason to exceed my instructionsand open the envelopes in my absence, and led Mr. Mason to MissManwaring's room, where, to his own stupendous surprise, there wasfound hidden one of the rings that had been stolen. "

"What makes you think he was so much surprised?" Mr. Trego cut in, whohad turned in his chair to eye Mr. Lyttleton in a most unpleasantlytruculent fashion. 

"Because he didn't know it was there. "

"But somebody must have made the plant, " Trego argued. "There's noquestion, I take it, of Miss Manwaring's innocence?"

"None whatever!" Mrs. Gosnold affirmed. 

"Then why not Lyttleton as well as another?"

"That, " Mrs. Gosnold said slowly, indeed reluctantly, "brings me tothe fact that no confession has been made, as I had hoped it might be. That is to say, the jewels have not been restored. I am sorry. Ihave done all I could to protect the thief. "

"You know--?" Trego inquired. 

"I saw the theft committed, " said Mrs. Gosnold. "It was done not forgain, but for the sole purpose of securing Miss Manwaring'sdischarge--"

A short, sharp cry interrupted her, and in the momentary silence ofastonishment that followed Mercedes Pride shut her eyes, sighedgently, slipped from her chair, and subsided to the floor in a deadfaint. 

CHAPTER XVIII

BREAKING JAIL

Within five minutes Sally was back behind the locked door of herbedchamber, alone with the glowing exaltation of complete exonerationand triumph over the machinations of her ill-wishers, alone with whatshould naturally have been tingling satisfaction in consciousness ofhaving administered yet another and (it was to be hoped) a finalstinging snub to that animal of a Trego. 

Yet her gratification in the memory of the latter event was singularlyvapid, flat, and savourless. 

They had been the last to leave the boudoir where, with the help ofher maid, Mrs. Gosnold was preoccupied with effort to restore herkinswoman--that hapless victim of her own malevolence. 

The others had been only too glad to disperse, following thatdiversion which freed them from the open contempt of their hostess, Sally and Trego. Lyttleton, indeed, had not hesitated to show hisspirit by taking to his heels down the corridor to his quarters whenTrego betrayed an inclination to follow him. And it was thiscircumstance which had led to the discomfiture of Trego. 

"A fine young specimen!" Trego commented with some disappointment, louring after the rapidly retreating figure. "But wait, " he suggestedominously, "just wait till I catch him outside the house. I knew I didwrong to let him off so easy last night. But I'll make up for it, allright. Leave him to me!"

"I am not interested in your personal quarrels with Mr. Lyttleton, "Sally told him frigidly. "Mine, if you please, I will settle formyself in my own way. When I desire your interference, I shall notifyyou. Till then--whatever the circumstances--I hope you will be goodenough not to speak to me under any circumstances whatever. "

With this she had left him dashed and staring. 

Now, in retrospection, she was alternately sorry that she had said asmuch and that she had not said more. He had deserved either the cutdirect and absolute, or he had deserved a thoroughgoing, whole-heartedexposition of his own despicable perfidy. 

She could never forgive him--and, what was worse, she could neverforgive herself for the smart of her wounded pride, when she recalledthat shameful scene in the garden. She could not forgive herself forcaring one way or the other. She could not forgive herself foradmitting that she cared. 

It was just this which rendered her position in Gosnold Housepositively untenable, however firmly it might seem to have beenre-established by the events of the last half-hour. 

It was just this which kept the girl from her pillow, buoyed by afeverish excitement. 

She could never stay at Gosnold House and continue on terms of anysort with Trego and suffer the airs with which Mrs. Artemas wouldtreat her vanquished rival in the man's affections, even though Sallyhad never been conscious of the rivalry nor in any way encouraged theputative prize. 

It might seem ungrateful to Mrs. Gosnold; Sally couldn't help that, though she was sincerely sorry; the association simply must bediscontinued. 

And that, she declared in her solitude, was all there was aboutit. . . . 

By the time she had succeeded in composing a note which seemedsufficiently grateful in tone to excuse the pitiful inadequacy of herexcuse for absconding--that she was "out of her element" on theIsland, an outsider, a Nobody, and didn't "belong" and nevercould--the chill light of early dawn had rendered the electricsgarish. 

She read the note over with hypercritical sensitiveness to itsdefects, but decided that it must do. Besides, she had used the lastsheet of note-paper in the rack on her desk; more was notobtainable without a trip to the living-room. Then in desperation sheappended, under the sign of the venerable P. S. , a prayer that thismight prove acceptable in lieu of more gracious leave-taking, addressed the envelope to Mrs. Gosnold, and left it stickingconspicuously in the frame of her dressing-mirror. 

Studiously she reduced her travelling gear to the simplest requisites;the hand-bag she took because she had a use for it, nothing less thanto serve as a cover for the return of everything she wore. 

She was determined to go out of this Island world, whose ether was toorare for her vulgar lungs, with no more than she had brought into it. 

At length the laggard hands of the clock were close together on thefigure 6. 

She rose, let herself out of the room, and by way of that memorableside door issued forth into a morning as rarely beautiful as ever thatblessed Island knew. It made renunciation doubly difficult. Yet Sallydid not falter or once look back. 

Her way to the village wharf was shortest by the beach. None saw hersteal through the formal garden (with eyes averted from that onemarble seat which was forever distinguished from all others in theworld) and vanish over the lip of the cliff by way of its long, zigzagstairway. Few noticed her as she debouched from the beach intothe village streets; her dress was inconspicuous, her demeanour evenmore than retiring. 

Her hope was favoured in that on this earlier trip of the boat therewere few passengers other than natives of the Island. 

On the mainland she caught an accommodation train which wound ahalting way through the morning and set her down in Providence late inthe forenoon. Then ignorance of railroad travel made her chooseanother accommodation instead of an express which would have cost nomore and landed her in New York an hour earlier. 

Her flight was financed by a few dollars left over from her bridgewinnings of the first day at Gosnold House after subsequent losses hadbeen paid. Their sum no more than sufficed; when she had purchased ameagre lunch at the station counter in New Haven she was pennilessagain; but for the clothes she wore she landed in New York even as shehad left it. 

The city received her with a deafening roar that seemed of exultationthat its prey had been delivered unto it again. 

The heat was even more oppressive than that of the day on which shehad left--or perhaps seemed so by contrast with the radiant coolnessof the Island air. 

Avoiding Park Avenue, she sought the place that she called home by wayof Lexington. 

She went slowly, wearily, lugging her half-empty hand-hag as if itwere a heavy burden. 

At length, leaving the avenue, she paused a few doors west of thecorner, climbed the weather-bitten steps to the brownstone entrance, and addressed herself to those three long flights of naked stairs. 

The studio door at the top was closed and locked. The card had beentorn from the tacks that held it to the panel. 

Puzzled and anxious, she stopped and turned up a corner of the wornfibre mat--and sighed with relief to find the key in its traditionalhiding-place. 

But when she let herself in, it was to a room tenanted solely by sevenhowling devils of desolation. 

Only the decrepit furniture remained; it had not been worth cartage orstorage; every personal belonging of the other two girls haddisappeared; Mary Warden had not left so much as a sheet of music, Lucy Spade had overlooked not so much as a hopeless sketch. 

Yet Sally had no cause for complaint; they had forsaken her lessindifferently than she had them; one or the other had left anewspaper, now three days old, propped up where she could not fail tosee it on the antiquated marble mantel-shelf. In separatecolumns on the page folded outermost two items were encircled withrings of crimson water-colour. 

One, under the caption "News of Plays and Players, " noted thedeparture for an opening in Atlantic City of the musical comedycompany of whose chorus Mary Warden was a member. 

The other, in the column headed "Marriages, " announced tersely thenuptials of Lucy Spode and Samuel W. Meyerick. No details were given. 

Forlornly Sally wandered to the windows and opened them to exchangethe hot air of the studio for the hotter air of the back yards. 

Then slowly she set about picking up the threads of her life. 

Such clothing as she owned offered little variety for choice. Sheselected the least disreputable of two heavy, black winter skirts, ashirt-waist badly torn at the collar-band, her severely plainunder-clothing, coarse black stockings, and shoes that had beendiscarded as not worth another visit to the cobbler's. 

When these had been exchanged for the gifts of Mrs. Standish, Sallygrimly packed the latter into the hand-bag and shut the latch uponthem with a snap of despair. 

Come evening, when it was dark enough, she would leave them at thedoor of the residence up the street, ring the bell, and run. 

She sat out a long hour, hands listless in her lap, staring vacantlyout at that well-hated vista of grimy back yards, drearily reviewingthe history of the last five days. She felt as one who had dreamed adream and was not yet sure that she had waked. 

Later she roused to the call of hunger, and foraged in the larder, orwhat served the studio as such, turning up a broken carton of UneedaBiscuit and half a packet of black tea. There was an egg, but sheprudently refrained from testing it. . . . 

It never entered her weary head to imagine that the feet that poundedheavily on the stairs were those of anybody but the janitor; she waswondering idly whether there were rent due, and if she would be turnedout into the street that very night; and was thinking it did not muchmatter, when the footfalls stopped on the threshold of the studio andshe looked up into the face of Mr. Trego. 

Surprise and indignation smote her with speechlessness, but her eyeswere eloquent enough as she started up--and almost overturned therickety table at which she had been dining. 

But he was crassly oblivious of her emotion. Removing his hat, hemopped his brow, sighed, and smiled winningly. 

"Hello!" he said. "You certainly did give me a deuce of a hunt. Iwormed it out of Mrs. Gosnold that you inhabited a studio somewhere onthis block, and I suppose I must have climbed thirty times threeflights of stairs in the last hour. "

She demanded in a low, tense voice: "Why have you followed me here?"

"Well, " he protested, "Mrs. Gosnold sent me--and if she hadn't, Iwould have come anyway. I told you last night that I loved you. Ihaven't changed since then. And now that you're in a fix, whether ornot of your own contriving--well, it isn't my notion of love to letyou pull out for yourself if you'll let me help. And that goes, evenif you stick to it that you won't marry me. "

"And Mrs. Artemas?" she inquired icily. "What does she think aboutyour coming after me?"

He stared and laughed. "Oh, did you know about that? I hoped youdidn't. "

"I saw you with her in your arms. "

"Yes, " he agreed patiently. "She'd been laying for me for severalweeks. I told you she was--don't you remember? Only, of course, Ididn't name her. And last night, when I went back there looking foryou, she cornered me; and while I was trying to be nice and explain Icould never be anything more than a brother to her she began toblubber and threw herself into my arms and . . . What could a fellowdo? I tried to make her behave, but before she would listen to reasonthose confounded people had to pop up. And, of course, she tookadvantage of that opening instanter. But--great Scott!--youdidn't suppose I was going to be that sort of a gentleman and let herget away with it, did you? when I am so much in love with you I canhardly keep from grabbing you now! Not likely!"

She tried to answer him, but her traitorous voice broke, and beforeshe could master it he had resumed. 

"Mrs. Gosnold wants you back--sent me to say so--says she'll comeafter you if I fail to bring you. "

"Oh, no!" she protested, trembling uncontrollably. 

"You won't meet any of those folks. They're all going to-day. It's anew deal from a fresh deck, so to speak. "

"No, " she averred more steadily. "You told me I was foolish; you wereright. I'm through with all that. "

He came closer to her. "You needn't be, " he said. "Don't damn Societyjust because you got in wrong at the first attempt. Try again. Let metry with you. I've got all the money there is, more or less. If youwant a villa at Newport--"

"Oh, please, no! I tell you, I'm finished with all that forever. "

"Well, " he grinned fatuously, "what about a flat in Harlem?"

A little smile broke through her tears. 

"Why must you go to such extremes?" she laughed brokenly. "Aren'tthere any more apartments to be had on Riverside Drive?"

THE END

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