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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nobody, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Nobody
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Illustrator: W. L. Jacobs
+
+Release Date: August 12, 2009 [EBook #29671]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOBODY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Kostuch. (This text was produced from files
+obtained from The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: The original unedited text file came
+from http://www.archive.org/details/nobody00jacogoog]
+
+
+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 between
+the pages of the magazine, she pored sedulously over a legend attached
+to one of the illustrations.
+
+After a decent pause in waiting the waitress renewed her demand with a
+sharper accent:
+
+"Say, lis'en; what you want?"
+
+"White satin, veiled with _point d' Angleterre_,'" Miss Manvers
+replied distinctly, if without looking up, aware simply of something
+imperative 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 lined
+with 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 was
+bending 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 waitress
+arranged knife, fork, spoon, and paper serviette on the unclothed
+brown board before Miss Manvers. "That's the worst of them fashion
+mag'zines," she complained; "they get your goat. Sometimes after
+readin' some of that dope I can't hardly remember orders right, just
+for wishin' somebody'd come along and hang some of them joyful rags
+onto me!"
+
+Then, catching the eye of the manager, she straightway resumed her
+professional habit of slightly wilted hauteur--compounded in equal
+parts of discontent, tired feet, heat-fag and that profound disdain
+for food-consuming animals which inevitably informs the mind of every
+quick-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 a
+napoleon."
+
+Reciting the amended order, the waitress withdrew.
+
+For the next few moments the customer neglected the fashion magazine
+which she had found--apparently a souvenir of some other
+absent-minded patron--on the seat of the chair next that one of her
+own 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 was
+deeply intrigued by the mystery of human frailty as exemplified by her
+reckless extravagance in ordering that superfluous bit of pastry. Miss
+Manvers's purse contained a single coin of silver, the quarter of a
+dollar; being precisely the sum of her entire fortune. Her ham and
+beans would cost fifteen cents, the coffee and the napoleon five cents
+each. In other words, she would be penniless when she had paid her
+score--and Heaven only knew for how long afterward.
+
+Her lips moved without sound in her worn and pallid face. "What's the
+difference?" she bully-ragged her conscience. "I might as well be
+broke as the way I am!"
+
+The argument was painfully reasonable; that inmate of New York
+who has but five cents has nothing.
+
+On the other hand, there was nothing whatever to be advanced in
+extenuation of her folly in thus inviting indigestion--a passion for
+pastry is its own punishment no less than any other infatuation to
+which mortal flesh is prone. Sally was morally certain she would
+suffer, and that severely, before nightfall.
+
+"Well, what of it?" she grumbled sullenly. "If I die for it, it's
+cheap at the price! And, no matter what happens, it can't be any
+hotter afterward than it is now."
+
+Somehow soothed by this cynical reflection, she sat up, mopped her
+flushed forehead with a handkerchief of which she was not proud, and
+drank thirstily of her tumbler of ice-water.
+
+The grateful draft reminded her that she had actually been athirst
+ever since noon. It was now almost three o'clock--thanks to which fact
+she might eat in the comparative comfort of a lunchroom which boasted
+no patron other than herself. But she was little appreciative of this
+boon; she comprehended her surroundings with just a little languid
+resentment of their smug cleanliness and their atmosphere impregnated
+with effluvia of cheap edibles. But if these seemed offensive she
+would have been willing to overlook them on certain
+conditions--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'll
+ask the manager, if you want."
+
+Miss Manvers nodded a barely audible "Please!" She munched drearily
+for a few minutes, staring out through the front windows wherein, from
+dawn till dark, a white-clad chef industriously browned the wheats and
+cast sinkers; beyond their wide expanse of plate-glass, stenciled with
+the name of the establishment in reverse, a vista of sun-smitten
+street danced drunkenly through the reek from the sheet-iron griddles.
+Miss Manvers wondered dully if the sidewalks were really less hot than
+those same griddles.
+
+"The manager says nothin' doin'," the waitress reported. "But you can
+leave 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 it
+from me, this ain't the kind of a job you could make good at. You
+gotta 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 without
+they've juggled hash in one of these joints on a summer day. The
+kitchen back there is honest' somethin' fierce. Three of our girls
+fainted 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, and
+Miss Manvers was left to resume her scanning of the fashion magazine.
+
+If its distracting quality was unquestionable, it hardly contributed
+comfort to her mood.
+
+"In selecting her personal apparel," she read, "the bride-to-be must,
+of necessity, be guided by individual requirements and the social
+position which she is to assume. Although much has been said about the
+advisability of purchasing only what is really needed and can be worn
+before the styles change, it is a common fault of brides to buy too
+much. . . . It is assumed that the June bride will have already on
+hand a suit or two, a one-piece frock of serge or similar material, a
+top-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 mentally
+to inventory her own wardrobe.
+
+"That lets me out," she said, and turned a page.
+
+The caption, "A Feudal Aristocracy," caught her attention. "Long
+Island," she learned, "is a poem itself to-day, even if it is
+suffering from cheap developments, the encroachment of tenantry, and
+the swarming of the commuters. It is too bad that this garden spot
+must be overrun, and indeed there has been a movement to stay the tide
+of immigration from the city. In one section our best people are
+buying up vast stretches of property to add to their private estates.
+. . ."
+
+Fascinated, Miss Manvers thrust aside a garnished plate, took a gulp
+of the decoction called coffee, and attacked her napoleon.
+
+"I am so glad," she continued to read, "to see that we are adding to
+our estates and fast forming an aristocracy of the countryside; we
+really live at our country places now for over half the year. Even the
+large weddings are no longer town affairs. If one has an estate it is
+so much smarter now to marry off one's daughters from the country
+place. Yet there is always one difficulty about this method of
+procedure: can such weddings be afforded the prominence
+necessary? Weddings, of course, must be given a certain amount of
+advertisement, through the proper channels, because each of us stands
+for a representative house, which must not drop into oblivion. . . ."
+
+At this point Miss Manvers wrinkled her nose indignantly. "Just for
+that," she informed the unknown author of this artless screed, "just
+for that now, I've a great mind not to go to Long Island at all this
+summer--not even once to Coney!"
+
+She turned impatiently back to the advertising pages and reviewed the
+"classified wants" listlessly, forewarned by experience that they
+would offer no invitation to one of her singularly modest
+accomplishments; none of these advertisers desired the services of a
+saleswoman, a typist, or even a lady's-maid. Not that Miss Manvers
+imagined she would score a success in the role of lady's-maid, though
+it was almost the only means open to her of earning a livelihood
+which, thus far, she had not essayed.
+
+Such work was hardly calculated to suit a girl with a mind of
+independent cast and what is known as a temper of her own: prohibitive
+barriers between her and such bread as may be earned in the sweat of
+domestic servitude.
+
+Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social
+World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's
+intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her
+food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy--trite
+announcements of post-season luncheons, dinners, dances, and bridge
+parties; of departures for Europe and for American country homes, of
+engagements and of weddings--distilling therefrom an acid envy that
+robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
+
+Such was the life for which she yearned with every famished aspiration
+of her being. And why not? Who were these whose half-tone portraits
+smirked complacence or scowled disdain to her inspection--who were
+these that they should enjoy every good thing in life while she must
+go hungering all her days for a little pleasure? Scarce one betrayed
+by feature or expression either breeding or intelligence superior to
+that of Sally Manvers, late of the hardware notions in Huckster's
+Bargain Basement!
+
+Regarding the full-page reproduction of a photograph showing a
+jibber-jawed June bride in full regalia, Miss Manvers was moved
+enviously to paraphrase an epigram of moot origin: "There, but for the
+grace 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 the
+desk of the blond cashier, then, penniless, wandered forth into the
+brutal sunshine.
+
+Her homeward way took her up Sixth Avenue, through Thirty-Fourth
+Street, and northward on Park Avenue.
+
+She went slowly, wearily, as suited a drudge to whom respite from
+drudgery brought no earnest of ease or pleasure. The burning air beat
+up into her downcast face from sun-baked stones that scorched through
+the soles of her shoddy shoes, and she gulped down acrid mouthfuls of
+it rather than breathed.
+
+June was still young, but already summer, like some burly ruffian
+shouldering spring aside with her work half done, held the city in the
+hollow of a hot and humid hand.
+
+In the mid-afternoon glow, lower Park Avenue owned its personal
+atmosphere of somnolent isolation, in strong contrast with the bustle
+of proletarian Fourth Avenue at its one extreme and the roar at the
+other of traffic-galled Forty-Second Street. Of the residences a few,
+whose awninged windows resembled heavy-lidded eyes, overlooked
+wayfaring folk with drowsy arrogance; the greater number, with boarded
+doors and blinded windows, like mouths and eyes tight shut in
+seasonable slumber, ignored the world entirely.
+
+Though she had passed that way twice a day for years on
+end--always in consciousness of that aloof spirit informing the
+inanimate, and in such resentment thereof as properly rewarded a
+studied insolence--never before to-day had Sarah Manvers found the
+genius of the neighbourhood so unmitigatedly intolerable. It was with
+downright relief that presently she turned from the avenue eastward
+and accomplished in the span of one short cross-town block a transit
+of the most violent contrasts, from the dull dignity of the socially
+eligible, if somewhat _passé_, through a stratum of shabby gentility,
+to a region of late years dedicated to the uses of adversity
+undisguised.
+
+A few doors short of Lexington Avenue she paused, sighed, turned,
+climbed weather-bitten steps to a brownstone entrance, and addressed
+herself 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 a
+hag-ridden teacher of vocal culture, on the next several dusty
+chambers perennially unrented, and gained at the top an open door
+whose panels sported a simple rectangle of cardboard advertising the
+tenancy 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, which
+boasted a top-light together with the generic name of studio, and
+was furnished with an ill-assorted company of lame and dismal pieces.
+The several vocations of its tenants were indicated by a
+typewriting-machine beneath a rubber hood thick with dust, a folding
+metal music-stand and a violin-case, and a large studio easel
+supplemented by a number of scrubby canvases. A door in the partition
+wall communicated with a small bedchamber of the kind commonly termed
+"hall room." And in one corner a stationary wash-stand and a gas-stove
+for morbid cookery lurked behind a Japanese screen of dilapidated
+panels.
+
+Near the windows, on the end of a box-couch, a young woman was
+perched, thin shoulders rounded over the ink-stained drawing-board
+resting on her knees. She had a large, self-willed mouth and dark
+Bohemian hair, and wore a dreary cotton kimono over a silk petticoat
+whose past had been lurid. One hand clutched gingerly a bottle of
+India ink, the other wielded a scratchy steel drafting-pen.
+
+Interrupted, she looked up with a start that all but spilled the ink
+and cried in a voice heavily coloured with the enervating brogue of
+the Southern born:
+
+"My land, Sally! _What_ time is it?"
+
+In the act of unpinning her hat (a straw that even a drowning woman
+would have hesitated to grasp at) Miss Manvers paused to consult an
+invalid alarm-clock which was suffering palpitations on an
+adjacent 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 I
+guess 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 be
+hotter than this before Sammy warms up enough to singe anything. His
+intentions are so praiseworthy they pain him; he blushes every time he
+has to recognise the sex question long enough to discuss the delights
+of monogamy in a two-family house within commuting distance of
+Prospect 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 came
+No'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 a
+dollar per, and I know a minor poet who's acquainted with the
+assistant editor of _The Scrap-Book_, and the one man I know who owns
+a dress-suit gets fifty cents an hour for posing in it. If that isn't
+enough to make me welcome even the prospect of married life with Sammy
+Myerick and a woman to do the washing, I don't know--"
+
+"Well, if you aren't crazy about Sammy, why not chuck him? Marriage
+isn't the last resource for a girl like you. You've got just as many
+wits to live on as the next one. This town's full of young women no
+better-looking than either of us, and with even less intelligence, who
+manage pretty comfortably, thank you, on the living the world owes
+them."
+
+"Sally Manvers!" cried the Southern girl, scandalised, "what a way to
+talk!"
+
+"Oh, _all_ right," said the other indifferently. "Where's Mary
+Warden?"
+
+"Lyric Hall-rehearsing."
+
+"Lucky Mary!"
+
+Lucy Spode looked up in astonishment. "Lucky!" she protested; "dancing
+till she's ready to drop, in this awful heat, and no pay for
+rehearsals!"
+
+"All the same," Sally contended, "she's got some chance, some right to
+hope for better things. She's an understudy, and her principal might
+fall ill--or something. That's better than marrying a man you don't
+care 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 Manvers
+suspiciously.
+
+"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 of
+the rent; slaving for a dollar a day, and losing part of that in
+unjust fines; walking to and from the store to save car fare; eating
+the sort of food we do eat; never having pretty clothes or pleasures
+of any sort. I don't call this a life!"
+
+"You've got indigestion," Miss Spade diagnosed shrewdly. "I'll bet two
+bits you've been eating napoleons again."
+
+"I have got indigestion, but it's thanks only to being fed up
+with 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 the
+ink-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 of
+twenty-seven wants something and doesn't know what it is, it's either
+the vote or a man."
+
+"Oh, shut up."
+
+"With man an odds-on favourite in the betting." Miss Spode laid the
+board 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 having
+would glance twice at me."
+
+"You can be pretty enough," Miss Spade returned seriously, "when you
+want 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 in
+rags like these? It only gets a girl in wrong. I don't care how
+fetching 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 working
+girls'; they leave that to things who wear 'Modish Men's
+Clothing'--with braided cuffs and pockets slashed on the bias!--and
+stand smirking on corners we have to pass going home. Do you think I'd
+do 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 other
+girls get without asking--pretty clothes and--and all that sort of
+thing."
+
+"Meaning," the artist interpreted gravely, "love."
+
+"Well," Sally demanded, defiant, "why not?"
+
+"Why not indeed?" Lucy returned obliquely, wandering round the studio
+and collecting various articles of wearing-apparel toward her
+appearance in public.
+
+"I'm twenty-seven," Miss Manvers declared mutinously. "I'll never be
+younger--I want to be loved before I'm old!"
+
+She paused, viewed with reassuring amusement Lucy's countenance of
+perplexity, and laughed again.
+
+"I've had ten years of independence; and what has it brought me? The
+reward of virtue: that swaybacked couch for my bed, Uneeda biscuit for
+my 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 because
+they're hungry. I'm less bothered about keeping body and soul together
+--Huckster's seven a week does that after a fashion--than about
+keeping soul and mind together."
+
+"It sounds reasonable."
+
+"I'm desperate, I tell you! And there's more than one resort of
+desperation 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 a
+wardrobe."
+
+"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 a
+law of God or man runs north of fifty-three'! Well, the age of
+twenty-seven is a woman's fifty-three, north latitude--at least, it is
+if she's unmarried--time to jettison scruples, morals, regard for the
+conventions, and hoist the black flag of social piracy!"
+
+"In plain language, you think the hour has struck to doll yourself up
+like a man-trap. What?"
+
+"Yes--and hang the expense!"
+
+"By all means, hang it. But where? It's a case of cash or credit; the
+first you haven't got, and I don't see your visible means of
+supporting 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 as
+nothing more nor less than adventurers. Nobody's fussing about how
+they got their money. It's a sin to be poor nowadays, but the sin of
+sins is to stay poor!"
+
+A moment of silence followed this pronouncement; then Miss Spode
+observed pensively:
+
+"Something's happened to you to-day, Sally. What is it? You haven't
+been--"
+
+"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's
+shoulder: "I am sorry!"
+
+"Of course you are," Sally returned stonily. "But you needn't be. I'm
+not 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 the
+other girl's hand and laid her cheek transiently against it. "What I
+meant to make clear was"--she faltered momentarily--"I've made up my
+mind I'm a Jonah, and the only decent thing for me to do is to quit
+you 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, the
+distressed look of her companion.
+
+"Don't be silly!" this last retorted, pulling herself together. "You
+know 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 to
+take you on again, Mary and I can easily keep things going until you
+find another job."
+
+"But that wouldn't be fair!"
+
+"What wouldn't be fair?"
+
+"To sponge on you two under false pretences." "False pretences!" Lucy
+iterated blankly.
+
+"I was laid off last Saturday. I didn't say anything, but I've been
+looking for something else ever since--and this is Wednesday, and I'm
+through. I'm sick and tired. I've got just as much right as anybody to
+live 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 before
+pursuing. "But what I can't understand is how--assuming you're in
+earnest--"
+
+"Deadly earnest!" Sally declared.
+
+"--and mean to go through with this--how you think you'll get a start
+without 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 a
+fraud. 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 preach
+anarchy 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. "Do
+try to brace up and be sensible, honey. I'm worried about leaving you
+alone 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 nine
+of the Social Pirate's Letters of Marque. But I don't mind telling you
+the chances are you'll find me on the roof when you get back, unless
+this heat lets up. I'm going up now; this place is simply
+suffocating!"
+
+But her smile grew dim as she resigned herself to an evening whose
+loneliness promised to be unbroken; that faint flush faded which had
+crept into her cheeks in the course of her half-whimsical,
+half-serious harangue; she looked once more what life had made her--a
+work-worn shop-girl, of lack-lustre charm, on the verge of prematurely
+middle-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, darkened
+quickly with their expression of jaded discontent.
+
+Another six months? She felt as if she could not suffer another six
+hours. . . .
+
+After a time she rose and moved languidly out into the hall, from
+which an iron ladder led up through a scuttle to the roof, the refuge
+and retreat of the studio's tenants on those breathless, interminable
+summer nights when their quarters were unendurably stuffy. Here they
+were free to lounge at ease, _en déshabillé_; neither the dressmaker
+nor the teacher of voice-production ever troubled their privacy, and
+seldom did other figures appear on any of the roofs which ran to the
+Park Avenue corner on an exact plane broken only by low dividing walls
+and chimney-stacks.
+
+Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture
+of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of the
+copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust
+from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered
+elfin limbs.
+
+Selecting the soundest chair, Sally dragged it into the shadow cast by
+the hood of the studio top-light, and settling down with her feet on
+the adjacent coping, closed her eyes and sought to relax from her
+temper 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 in
+the homes and parks of the wealthy, as pictured by the sycophantic
+fashion magazine and cast with the people of its gallery of
+photographs--sublimely smart women in frocks of marvellous
+inspiration, and polo-playing, motor-driving, clothes-mad men of an
+insouciance appalling.
+
+On the edge of unconsciousness she said aloud, but without knowing
+that she spoke, three words.
+
+These were: "Charmeuse . . . Paquin . . . Bride . . ."
+
+And then she slept; her pallid face upturned to that high-arched sky
+of brass, from which light and heat beat down in brutal waves, she
+slept the sleep of exhaustion, deep and heavy; dark and stupefying
+sleep possessed her utterly, as overpowering and obliterating as
+though induced by drugs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BURGLARY
+
+
+
+She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some
+half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement
+fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come
+on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.
+
+Without the least warning a blinding violet glare cut the gloom, the
+atmosphere quaked with a terrific shock of thunder, and the downpour
+became heavier.
+
+Appalled, the girl sprang from her chair and groped her way to the
+scuttle through a crepuscle resembling late twilight.
+
+It was closed.
+
+Somebody, presumably the janitor, had shut it against the impending
+storm without troubling to make sure there was no one on the roof, for
+her chair had been invisible behind the shoulder of the top-light.
+
+With a cry of dismay the girl knelt and, digging fingers beneath the
+cover, tugged with all her might. But it was securely hooked
+beneath and held fast.
+
+Then, driven half frantic less by the lashing rain than by a dread of
+lightning which she had never outgrown, she stumbled back to the glass
+face of the top-light and pounded it with her fists, screaming to Mary
+Warden to come and let her in. But no lights showed in the studio, and
+no one answered; reluctantly she was persuaded that Mary was not yet
+home from rehearsals.
+
+The long rolling, grinding broadsides of thunder made almost
+continuous accompaniment--broken only by the briefest
+intermissions--to the fiery sword-play that slashed incessantly
+through and through that grim tilt of swollen black cloud.
+
+Half-stunned and wholly terrified, dazzled and deafened as well, the
+girl dashed the rain from her eyes and strove to recollect her wits
+and grapple sanely with her plight.
+
+Already she was wet to her skin--water could no more harm her--but the
+mad elemental tumult confounded all her senses; her sole conscious
+impulse was to gain shelter of some sort from the sound and fury of
+the tempest.
+
+It was a bare chance that a scuttle on some one of the adjacent roofs
+might be, at least, not fastened down.
+
+Fighting the buffeting wind, the scourging rain, and her panic
+fright, she gained the scuttle of the roof to the west, but found it
+immovable.
+
+She tried the next roof, with no better fortune.
+
+Panting, even sobbing a little in her terror, she scrambled on through
+a sort of nightmarish progress to the next roof, and on and on to the
+next and the next.
+
+She kept on reckoning, and couldn't have said how many roofs she had
+crossed, when at length she discovered a scuttle that was actually
+ajar, propped wide to the pounding flood; and without pause to wonder
+at this circumstance, or what might be her reception and how to
+account for herself, she swung down into that hospitable black hole,
+found footing on the ladder, let herself farther down--and by
+mischance dislodged the iron arm supporting the cover.
+
+It fell with a bang and a click, and Sally barely escaped crushed
+fingers by releasing the rim and tumbling incontinently to the floor.
+
+Happily she hadn't far to fall, wasn't hurt, and hastily picking
+herself up, stood half-dazed, listening for sounds of alarm within the
+house.
+
+Coincidently the storm sounded a crisis in a series of tremendous,
+shattering crashes, so heavy and so prolonged that all the world
+seemed to rock and vibrate, echoing the uproar like a gigantic
+sounding-board.
+
+This passed; but from the body of the house Sally heard nothing--only
+the crepitation of rain on the roof and the sibilant splatter of drops
+trickling from her saturated skirts into the puddle that had formed
+beneath the scuttle.
+
+She stood in what at first seemed unrelieved darkness--but for
+glimpses revealed by the incessant slash and flare of lightning--at
+one end of a short hallway, by the rail of a staircase well. Three or
+four doors opened upon this hall; but she detected no sign of any
+movement in the shadows, and still heard no sound.
+
+Wondering--and now, as she began to appreciate her position, almost as
+unhappy in her refuge as she had been in the storm--Sally crept to the
+rail and peered down. But her straining senses detected nothing below
+more than shadows, solitude, and silence; which, however, failed to
+convey reassurance; the fact of the open scuttle would seem to
+indicate that she hadn't stumbled into an uninhabited house.
+
+Stealthily she proceeded to investigate the several rooms of that
+topmost story--servants' quarters, comfortably furnished, but
+tenantless.
+
+Then step by timid step she descended to the next floor, which she
+found devoted to three handsomely appointed bedchambers, also empty.
+And slowly, as her courage served, another flight took her down to a
+story given over wholly to two bedchambers with baths, dressing-rooms
+and boudoirs adjoining, all very luxurious to a hasty survey.
+
+Below this again was an entrance hall, giving access to a
+drawing-room, a library, and, at the back of the house, a dining-room,
+each apartment in its way deepening the impression of a home toward
+whose making wealth and good taste had worked in rarely harmonious
+collaboration.
+
+And finally the basement proved to be as deserted as any room above;
+this though the kitchen clock still ticked on stertorously, though the
+fire in the range had been banked rather than drawn, though one had
+but to touch the boiler to learn it still held water piping-hot.
+
+It required, however, only a moment's sober thought, once satisfied
+she was alone, to suggest as one reasonable solution to the puzzle
+that the owners had fled town for the week-end, leaving the
+establishment in care of untrustworthy servants, who had promptly
+elected to seek their own pleasure elsewhere.
+
+Content with this theory, Sally chose one of the windows of the
+servants' dining-room from which to spy out stealthily, between the
+shade and the sill, over a flooded area and street; first remarking a
+sensible modification of the gloom in spite of an unabated downpour,
+then that the house was near the Park Avenue corner, finally a
+policeman sheltered in the tradesman's entrance of the dwelling
+across the way.
+
+At this last disquieting discovery Sally retreated expeditiously from
+the window, for the first time realising that her presence in that
+house, however adventitious and innocent, wouldn't be easy to explain
+to one of a policeman's incredulous idiosyncrasy; the legal definition
+of burglar, strictly applied, fitted Sarah Manvers with disconcerting
+neatness.
+
+But nobody knew; it was only half past six by the clock in the
+kitchen; it was reasonably improbable that the faithless servants
+would come back much before midnight; and she need only wait for the
+storm to pass to return across the roofs, or, for that matter, to
+leave circumspectly by the front door. For it would certainly be dark
+by the time the storm uttered its last surly growl and trailed its
+bedraggled skirts off across Long Island.
+
+For an instant finely thrilled with a delicious sense of the wild
+adventure of being alone in a strange house, free to range and pry at
+will, she found the full piquancy a bit difficult to relish with
+sodden clothing clinging clammily to her body and limbs.
+
+None the less it was quite without definite design that Sally retraced
+her way to that suite of rooms in the second story which seemed to be
+the quarters of the mistress of the establishment; and it was no
+more than common-sense precaution (prompted, it's true, by sheer, idle
+curiosity) which moved her to darken windows already shuttered by
+drawing their draperies of heavy, rose-coloured silk before switching
+on the lights.
+
+It may have been merely the reflection of rose-tinted walls that lent
+the face of the girl unwonted colour, but the glow that informed her
+eyes as she looked about was unquestionably kindled by envy as much as
+by excitement.
+
+Nothing, indeed, lacked to excite envy in that hungry heart of hers.
+The bedchamber and its boudoir and bath were not only exquisitely
+appointed, but stood prepared for use at a moment's notice; the bed
+itself was beautifully dressed; the dressing-table was decked with all
+manner of scent-bottles, mirrors, and trays, together with every
+conceivable toilet implement in tortoise-shell with a silver-inlay
+monogram--apparently A-M-S; the rugs were silken, princely, priceless;
+elusive wraiths of seductive perfumes haunted the air like memories of
+lost caresses.
+
+And when the girl pursued her investigations to the point of opening
+closed doors she found clothes-presses containing a wardrobe to cope
+with every imaginable emergency--frocks of silk, of lace, of satin, of
+linen; 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 any
+woman's heart.
+
+And against all this sybaritic store the intruder had to set the
+figure mirrored by a great cheval-glass--the counterfeit of a jaded
+shop-girl in shabby, shapeless, sodden garments, her damp, dark hair
+framing stringily a pinched and haggard face with wistful, care-worn
+eyes.
+
+Her heart ached with a reawakened sense of the cruel unfairness of
+life. Her flesh crept with the touch of her rain-soaked clothing. And
+in her thoughts temptation stirred like a whispering serpent.
+
+Beyond dispute it was wrong, what she contemplated, utterly wrong, and
+wild to madness; but the girl was ripe for such temptation and frail
+with a weakness due to long years of deprivation. Full half of her
+heart's desire was here, free to her covetous fingers, a queen's
+trousseau of beautiful belongings.
+
+"It's only for an hour. No one need ever know. I'll leave everything
+just as I found it. And I'm so uncomfortable!"
+
+She hesitated a moment longer, but only a moment; of a sudden
+smouldering embers of jealousy and desire broke into devastating
+flame, consuming doubts and scruples in a trice. Swift action ensued;
+this was no more an affair of conscience, but of persuasion and
+resistless impulse. She flew about like one possessed--as, indeed, she
+was, 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 slipped
+from her despised garments and, hanging them up to dry in a tiled
+corner where their dampness could harm, nothing, slipped into the
+bath. . . .
+
+Half an hour later, deliciously caressed by garments of soft white
+silk beneath a feather-weight _robe-de-chambre_, she sat before the
+dressing-table, drying her hair in the warm draft of an electric fan
+and anointing face, hands, and arms with creams and delicately scented
+lotions.
+
+A faint smile touched lips now guiltless of any hint of sullenness;
+she hummed softly to herself, whose heart had almost forgotten its
+birthright of song and laughter; never the least pang of conscience
+flawed 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. When
+she finished arranging it to her complete satisfaction she hardly knew
+the face that smiled back at her from the mirror's depths.
+Miraculously it seemed to have gained new lines of charm; its very
+thinness was now attractive, its colour unquestionably intrinsic; and
+her eyes were as the eyes of a happy child, exulting in the
+attainment of long-coveted possessions.
+
+It wasn't in human nature to contemplate this transformation and feel
+contrition for whatever steps had been necessary to bring it about.
+
+And when she could do no more to beautify her person Sally turned
+again to the clothes-press, by now so far gone in self-indulgence, her
+moral sense so insidiously sapped by the sheer sensual delight she had
+of all this pilfered luxury, that she could contemplate without a
+qualm less venial experiments with the law of _meum et tuum_.
+
+She entertained, in short, a project whose lawless daring enchanted
+her imagination, if one as yet of vague detail. But with command of
+the resources of this wonderful wardrobe, what was to prevent her from
+appropriating a suitable costume and stealing forth, when the storm
+had passed, to seek adventure, perhaps to taste for a night those joys
+she had read about and dreamed about, longed for and coveted, all her
+life long? Nothing could be more mad; there was no telling what might
+not happen; there was every warrant for believing that the outcome
+might be most unpleasant. But adventures are to the adventurous; and
+surely this one had started off propitiously enough!
+
+"And what I need she'll never miss. Besides, I can send back
+everything in the morning, anonymously, by parcel-post. It's only
+borrowing."
+
+Already she had passed from contemplation to purpose and stood
+committed to the enterprise, reckless of its consequence.
+
+But she found it far from easy to make her selection; it wouldn't do
+to fare forth _en décolletée_ without an escort--a consideration that
+sadly complicated the search for just the right thing, at once simple
+and extravagant, modish and becoming. Moreover, any number of
+captivating garments positively demanded to be tried on, then clung
+tenaciously to her pretty shoulders, refusing to be rejected.
+
+She wasted many a sigh over her choice, which was ultimately something
+darkish, a frock (I think) of dark-blue _crépe-de-chine_, designed
+primarily 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 finding
+slippers and a hat to her taste.
+
+The testimony of a small gilt clock startled her when at length she
+stood ready for the next step in her nefarious career: the hour-hand
+was passing ten. That seemed almost incredible.
+
+Running into the unlighted boudoir, she caught back the
+window-draperies, raised the sash, and peered cautiously out through
+the slanted slats of the wooden blinds.
+
+The sky that now shone down upon the city was a fair shield of stars
+unblurred by cloud; the storm had passed without her knowledge.
+
+Closing the window, Sally delayed for one last, rapturous survey of
+herself in the cheval-glass, then put out the lights and went to the
+door.
+
+She hardly knew why it was that she opened it so gently and waited so
+long upon the threshold, every nerve tensed to detect alien sound in
+the stillness of the empty house. But it was as if with darkness those
+vacant rooms and passages had become populous with strange, hostile
+spirits. She heard nothing whatever, yet it was with an effect of
+peril strong upon her senses that she stole forth through the hallway
+and up the stairs to the topmost floor, where, perched precariously
+upon the iron ladder, she tried her patience sorely with a stubborn
+scuttle-cover before recalling the click that had accompanied its
+closing--the click of a spring-latch.
+
+And this last, when gropingly located, proved equally obdurate; she
+fumbled doggedly until back and limbs ached with the strain of her
+position; but her fingers lacked cunning to solve the secret; and in
+the end, when on the point of climbing down to fetch matches, she
+heard a sound that chilled her heart and checked her breath in a
+twinkling--an odd, scuffling noise on the roof.
+
+At first remote and confused, it drew nearer and grew more
+clear--a sound of light footfalls on the sheet-tin.
+
+Her self-confidence and satisfaction measurably dashed, she climbed
+down, so fearful of betraying herself to the person on the roof that
+she went to the absurd extreme of gathering her skirts up tightly to
+still their silken murmur.
+
+Now she must leave by the street. And now she remembered the policeman
+who kept nightly vigil at the avenue crossing!
+
+She was beginning to be definitely frightened, vividly picturing to
+herself the punishment that must follow detection.
+
+And as she crept down-stairs, guided only by the banister-rail, the
+sense of her loneliness and helplessness there in that strange, dark
+place worked upon the temper of the girl until her plight, however
+real, was exaggerated hideously and endued with terrors so frightful
+that 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, thoughtfully
+considering the front door, the pale rectangle of whose plate-glass
+was stenciled black with the pattern of a lace panel. But she decided
+against risking that avenue of escape; it would be far less foolhardy
+to steal away _via_ the basement, unostentatiously, that the
+always-possible passer-by might more readily take her for a servant.
+
+Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope
+her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain
+steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like
+a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very
+marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
+
+If she could not have said what precisely it was that she feared, her
+fright was no less desperately real. She could see nothing; she had
+heard no sound; her hands had touched nothing more startling than
+the 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 and
+terrible skulking there, masked by the encompassing murk.
+
+Probably less than twenty seconds elapsed, but it seemed a long minute
+before her heart stirred anew, leaping into action with a quickened
+beat, 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 the
+very act of turning to follow it down to the basement, she halted
+involuntarily, again transfixed with terror.
+
+But this time her alarm had visible excuse; that there was something
+wrong in that strange house, so strangely deserted, was evident beyond
+dispute.
+
+She stood facing the dining-room door, the door to the library on her
+left; if not in any way evident to her senses, she could fix its
+position only approximately by an effort of memory. But through the
+former opening her vision, ranging at random, instinctively seeking
+relief from the oppression of blank darkness, detected a slender beam
+of artificial light no thicker than a lead-pencil--a golden blade that
+lanced the obscurity, gleaming dull upon a rug, more bright on
+naked parquetry, vivid athwart the dust-cloth shrouding the
+dining-table.
+
+For a moment or two the girl lingered, unstirring, fascinated by that
+slender, swerveless ray; then, slowly, holding her breath, urged
+against her will by importunate curiosity, she crossed the threshold
+of the dining-room, following the light back to its source--a narrow
+crack in the folding doors communicating with the library.
+
+Now Sally remembered clearly that the folding doors had been wide open
+at the time of her first tour of investigation; as, indeed, had the
+door between the library and hall--now tight shut, else this light
+would have been perceptible in the hall as well.
+
+It was undeniable, then, that since she had closeted herself up-stairs
+another person had entered the house--some one who had shut himself up
+there in the library for a purpose apparently as clandestine as her
+own. Or why such pains to mask the light, and why such care not to
+disturb the silence of the house?
+
+To have gone on and made good an escape without trying to read this
+riddle would have been hardly human of the girl, for all her
+misgivings; she stole on to the folding doors with less noise than a
+mouse had made and put an eye to the crack, which, proving somewhat
+wider than she had imagined, afforded a fair view of the best
+part of the other room.
+
+An electric chandelier was on full-blaze above the broad and heavy
+centre-table of mahogany, beyond which, against the farther wall,
+stood on the one hand a bookcase, on the other a desk of the roll-top
+type--closed. Above each of these the wall was decorated with trophies
+of ancient armour; between them hung a huge canvas in a massive gilt
+frame--the portrait of a beautiful woman beautifully painted. And
+immediately beneath the portrait stood a young man, posed in profound
+abstraction, 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 snugly
+by well-formed ears, and the salient line of one lean, brown cheek.
+But even so, with his countenance hidden, something conveyed a strong
+impression to the girl of a perplexed and disconcerted humour.
+
+She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had thought to
+discover a burglar of one or another accepted type--either a dashing
+cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or
+a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven burly brute in the rags and
+tatters of a tramp. But this man wore unromantic blue serge upon a
+person neither fascinating nor repellent. She could hardly
+imagine him either stealing a diamond tiara or hopping a freight.
+
+But that he was of a truly criminal disposition she was not permitted
+long to doubt; for in another moment he started from his pensive pose
+with the animation of one inspired, strode alertly to the wall,
+stepped up on the seat of a chair beside the desk, and straining on
+tiptoes (though tolerably tall) contrived to grasp the handle of a
+short-bladed Roman sword which formed part of one of the trophies.
+
+With some difficulty and, in the end, a grunt of satisfaction, he
+worked the weapon loose and, jumping down, turned to the desk, thrust
+the point of the sword between the writing-pad and the edge of the
+roll-top, forced the blade well in, and bore all his weight upon the
+haft 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 rug
+at his feet, pushed the top as far back as it would go, and, bending
+over the desk, explored its rack of pigeonholes and drawers. One of
+the latter eventually yielded the object of his search; he took from
+it first a small automatic pistol, which he placed carelessly to one
+side, then a small leather-bound book whose pages he thumbed in
+nervous haste, evidently seeking some memorandum essential to his
+ends. This found, he paused, conned it attentively for an
+instant, then turned and took the book with him across the room beyond
+the 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 herself
+of 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 she
+upon those premises! She wasn't afraid of men; and even were this one
+to catch her watching him (something Sally meant to take good care he
+shouldn't) he could hardly denounce her to the police. Besides, what
+_was_ he up to, anyhow, over there in that corner, out of sight? She
+simply had to know the meaning of those noises he was making.
+
+They were difficult to diagnose--an odd whirring sound broken by
+repeated muffled clanks and by several others as baffling, notably a
+muted metallic knocking and rattling.
+
+She experienced an exasperating effect of trying to see round a
+corner.
+
+But in the end she identified those sounds beyond mistake: the man was
+fretting the combination of a safe, pausing now and again to try the
+handle. For what, indeed, had he forced that desk if not to find
+the 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 doubt
+whatever that this was a jewel-case, and took his smile for
+confirmation of her surmise, though it was really less a smile than
+satisfaction twitching the full lips beneath his dark little moustache
+(one of those modishly flat affairs so widely advertised by
+collarmakers).
+
+For now the miscreant was facing Sally as he bent over the table and
+fumbled with the lock of the jewel-case, and she made good use of this
+chance to memorise a countenance of mildly sardonic cast, not
+unhandsome--the face of a conventional modern voluptuary,
+self-conscious, self-satisfied, selfish--rather attractive withal in
+the eyes of an excited young woman.
+
+But a moment later, finding the case to be fast-locked, the burglar
+gave utterance to an exclamation that very nearly cost him his appeal
+to her admiration. She couldn't hear distinctly, for the impatient
+monosyllable was breathed rather than spoken, but at that distance it
+sounded damnably like "_Pshaw!_"
+
+And immediately the man turned back to the desk to renew his
+rummaging--in search of a key to fit the case, she guessed. But his
+business there was surprisingly abbreviated--interrupted in a
+fashion certainly as startling to him as to her who skulked and spied
+on the dark side of the folding doors.
+
+Neither received the least intimation that the door from the library
+to the hall had been opened. Sally, for one, remained firmly persuaded
+that they two were alone in the silent house until the instant when
+she saw a second man hurl himself upon the back of the first--a
+swift-moving shape of darkness, something almost feline in his grim,
+violent fury that afforded the victim no time either to turn or to
+lift a hand in self-defence. In a twinkling the two went headlong to
+the floor and disappeared, screened by the broad top of the table.
+
+There, presumably, Blue Serge recovered sufficiently from the shock of
+surprise to make some show of fighting back. Confused sounds of
+scuffling and hard breathing became audible, with a thump or two
+deadened by the rug; but more than that, nothing--never a word from
+either combatant. There was something uncanny in the silence of it
+all.
+
+For an instant Sally remained where she was, rooted in fright and
+wonder; but the next, and without in the least understanding how she
+had come there, she found herself by the open door in the entry-hall,
+just beyond the threshold of the library, commanding an unobstructed
+view of the conflict.
+
+Apparently this neared its culmination. Though he had gone down
+face forward, Blue Serge had contrived to turn over on his back, in
+which position he now lay, still struggling, but helpless, beneath the
+bulk of his assailant--a burly, blackavised scoundrel who straddled
+the chest of his prey, a knee pinning down either arm, both hands busy
+with efforts to make an unappetising bandana serve as a gag.
+
+Pardonably rewarded for this inconsiderate treatment, the fat one
+suddenly snatched one hand away, conveyed a bitten finger to his
+mouth, instantly spat it out together with a gust of masterful
+profanity and, the other taking advantage of the opportunity to renew
+his struggles, shifted his grip to Blue Serge's throat and, bending
+forward, strove with purpose undoubtedly murderous to get possession
+of the short Roman sword.
+
+It lay just an inch beyond his reach. He strained his utmost toward
+it, 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 violence
+more desperate than a schoolboy squabble, discovered herself inside
+the library, standing beside the desk and levelling at the head of the
+heavy villain the automatic pistol that had rested there.
+
+Simultaneously she was aware of the sound of her own voice, its
+accents 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 up
+your hands!"
+
+The stout assassin started back and turned up to the amazing
+apparition of her a ludicrous mask of astonishment, eyes agoggle,
+mouth agape, pendulous beard-rusty chin aquiver like some unsavoury
+sort of jelly. Then slowly--thanks to something convincing in the
+manner of this young woman, aflame as she was with indignant
+championship of the under dog--he elevated two grimy hands to a point
+of 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 clumsy
+automaton animated by unwilling springs, the fat scoundrel lurched
+awkwardly 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 off
+guard, the man started toward her, but pulled up as quickly, dashed
+and sullen. For she did not flinch an inch.
+
+"That's your lookout!" she retorted incisively. "If you're afraid of
+it--stand back and keep your hands up!"
+
+With a flicker of a sheepish grin the rogue obeyed, falling back until
+his shoulders touched the wall and keeping his hands level with his
+ears.
+
+Still holding the pistol ready, the girl shifted her glance to Blue
+Serge.
+
+He had already picked himself up, and now stood surveying his ally
+with a regard which wavered between amaze and admiration, suspicion
+and surprise. Meanwhile he felt gingerly of his throat, as if it were
+still sore, and nervously endeavoured to readjust a collar which had
+broken from its moorings. Catching her inquiring eye, he bowed
+jerkily.
+
+"Thanks!" he panted. "I--ah--good of you, I'm sure--"
+
+She checked him coolly. "Take your time--plenty of it, you know--get
+your 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 was
+palpably frightened; and, whatever his excuse, a timid Raffles was a
+sorry object in her esteem at that instant. She had anticipated of
+him--she hardly knew what--something brilliant, bold, and dashing,
+something as romantic as one has every right to expect of a hero of
+romantic fiction. But this one stood panting, trembling, "sparring for
+wind," for all the world like any commonplace person fresh from rough
+handling!
+
+It was most disappointing, so much so that she conceded grudgingly the
+testimony of her senses to the rapidity with which he regained his
+normal poise and command of resource; for one evidence of which last
+she noted that he backed up to the centre-table with a casual air, as
+if needing its support, and with a deft, certain, swift gesture
+slipped the jewel-case into his coatpocket. And she noted, too, a
+flash of anxiety in his eyes, as if he were wondering whether she had
+noticed.
+
+At this she lost patience. "Well?" she said briskly. "If you've had
+time to think--"
+
+"To be sure," Blue Serge returned easily. "You mean, about this
+gentleman? If you ask me, I think he'd be far less potentially
+mischievous facing the wall."
+
+"All right," Sally agreed, and added with a fine flourish of the
+pistol: "Face about, you!"
+
+With flattering docility the fat rascal faced about. "And now," Blue
+Serge suggested, "by your leave--"
+
+Drawing near the girl, he held out his hand for the pistol, and to her
+own surprise she surrendered it without demur, suddenly conscious that
+he was no more afraid, that he was rapidly assuming comprehensive
+command of the situation beyond her to gainsay, and that he knew, and
+knew that she knew he knew, that she had never entertained any real
+intention 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, almost
+cringing in a panic of sadly jangled nerves.
+
+Happily for her conceit, once he had disarmed her, Blue Serge
+transferred his interest exclusively to his late assailant.
+
+Calmly showing the girl his back, he stepped over, poked the pistol's
+nose significantly into the folds of the ruffian's neck, and with a
+sharp word of warning slapped smartly his two hips; in consequence of
+which singular performance he thrust a hand beneath the tail of the
+fellow's coat and brought away a bull-dog revolver of heavy calibre.
+
+And then he stepped back, smiling, with a sidelong glance of triumph
+for Sally's benefit--a glance that spent itself on emptiness.
+
+For Sally was no more there; her uninstructed fingers were already
+fumbling with the fastenings of the front door when Blue Serge
+discovered 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 tempted
+to 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 had
+backed out of the library into the hall and paused there in the gush
+of light, staring after her.
+
+And when the door suddenly yielded she heard--or fancied that she
+heard--his voice, its accent peremptory: "Stop!" Or perhaps it was:
+"Wait!"
+
+She did neither; the door slammed behind her with a crash that
+threatened its glass; she was at the foot of the front steps before
+that sound had fairly registered on her consciousness; and her
+panic-winged heels had carried the young woman well round the corner
+and into Park Avenue before she appreciated how interesting her
+tempestuous flight from that rather thoroughly burglarised mansion
+would be apt to seem to a peg-post policeman. And then she pulled
+up short, as if reckoning to divert suspicion with a semblance of
+nonchalance--now that she had escaped.
+
+But a covert glance aside brought prompt reassurance; after all, the
+gods were not unkind; the policeman was just then busy on the far side
+of the avenue, hectoring humility into the heart of an unhappy taxicab
+operator who had, presumably, violated some minor municipal ordinance.
+
+
+Inconsistently enough--so strong is the habit of a law-abiding
+mind--the sight of that broad, belted, self-sufficient back, symbolic
+of the power and sanity of the law, affected Sally with a mad impulse
+to turn, hail the officer, and inform him of the conditions she had
+just quitted. And she actually swerved aside, as if to cross the
+avenue, before she realised how difficult it would be to invoke the
+law without implicating herself most damningly.
+
+Recognition of that truth was like receiving a dash of ice-water in
+her face; she gasped, cringed, and scurried on up Park Avenue as if
+hoping to outdistance thought. A forlorn hope, that: refreshed from
+its long rest (for since the storm she had been little better than the
+puppet of emotions, appetites, and inarticulate impulses) her mind had
+resumed its normal functioning.
+
+Inexorably it analysed her plight and proved that what she had
+conceived in an hour of discontent and executed on the spur of an
+envious instant could nevermore be undone. What had been planned to be
+mere temporary appropriation of an outfit of clothing--"to be returned
+in good order, reasonable wear and tear excepted"--was one thing;
+safe-breaking, with the theft of Heaven only knew what treasure, was
+quite another. As to that, had she not been guilty of active
+complicity in the greater crime? How could she be sure (come to think
+of it) that the stout man had not been the lawful caretaker rather
+than 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 in
+it was as certain to become known; too late she was reminded that the
+name "Manvers" indelibly identified every garment abandoned in the
+bath-room. Before morning certainly, before midnight probably, Sarah
+Manvers would be the quarry of a clamorous hue-and-cry.
+
+Appalled, she hurried on aimlessly, now and again breaking into
+desperate 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, and
+terrifying. 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 secret
+conference on her case, sloughing their disdainful daytime pose and
+following her fugitive, guilty figure with open amusement and
+contempt. Some (she thought) leered horribly at her, others scowled,
+others again assumed a scornful cast; one and all pretended to a
+hideous intelligence, as though they knew and, if they would, could
+say what and why she fled.
+
+It was as if the storm had been a supernatural visitation upon the
+city, robbing it of every intimate, homely aspect, leaving it
+inhumanly distorted in an obsession of abominable enchantment.
+
+With the start of one suddenly delivered from dream-haunted sleep, she
+found herself arrived at Forty-Second Street, and safe; none pursued
+her, nothing in her manner proclaimed the new-fledged malefactor; she
+need only observe ordinary circumspection to escape notice altogether.
+And for several moments she remained at a complete standstill there on
+the corner, blocking the fairway of foot traffic and blindly surveying
+the splendid facade of Grand Central Station, spellbound in wonder at
+the amazing discovery that Providence did not always visit incontinent
+retribution upon the heads of sinners--since it appeared that she who
+had sinned was to escape scot-free.
+
+With this she was conscious of a flooding spirit of exultant
+impenitence; the deadly monotony of her days was done with once and
+for all. It mattered little that--since it were suicidal to return to
+the studio, the first place the police would search for her--she was
+homeless, friendless, penniless; it mattered little that she was
+hungry (now that she remembered it) and had not even a change of
+clothing for the morrow; these things would somehow be
+arranged--whether by luck or by virtue of her wit--they _must!_
+
+All that really mattered was that the commonplace was banished from
+her ways, that she was alive, foot-loose and fancy-free, finally and
+definitely committed to the career of an adventuress.
+
+Paradoxically, she was appalled by contemplation of her amazing
+callousness; outlawed, _declassée_, she was indifferent to her
+degradation, and alive only to the joy of freedom from the bondage of
+any certain social status.
+
+Now as she lingered on the corner, people were passing her continually
+on their way over to the terminal; and one of these presently caught
+her attention--a man who, carrying a small oxford hand-bag, came up
+hastily from behind, started to cross the street, drew back barely in
+time to escape annihilation at the wheels of a flying squadron of
+taxicabs, and so for a moment waited, in impatient preoccupation
+with his own concerns, only a foot or two in advance but wholly
+heedless of the girl.
+
+Sally caught her breath sharply, and her wits seemed to knit together
+with a sort of mental click; the man was Blue Serge, identified
+unmistakably to her eyes by the poise of his blue-clad person--the
+same 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 went
+no more alone. Now a pertinacious shadow dogged him to the farther
+sidewalk, into the yawning vestibule of the railway station, on (at a
+trot) through its stupendous lobbies, even to the platform gates that
+were rudely slammed in his face by implacable destiny in the guise and
+livery of a gateman.
+
+At this, pausing a little to one side, Sally watched Blue Serge accost
+the guardian, argue, protest, exhibit tickets, and finally endeavour
+to bribe a way past the barrier. But the train was already pulling
+out; with a shake of his stubborn head the uniformed official moved
+on; and ruminating on a power of pent profanity, Blue Serge turned and
+strode back into the waiting-room, passing so near to Sally that their
+elbows almost touched without his rousing to the least recognition of
+her existence.
+
+But that in itself was nothing to dismay or check the girl in her
+purpose, and when Blue Serge a minute later addressed himself to
+the Pullman bureau she was still his shadow--an all but open
+eavesdropper upon his communications with the authority of the
+brass-barred wicket.
+
+"I've just missed the eleven ten for Boston," she heard him explain as
+he displayed tickets on the marble ledge, "and, of course, I'm out my
+berth 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 long
+pause, but one long enough to permit a wild, mad inspiration to flash
+like lightning athwart the clouded horizon of Sally's doubt and
+perplexity. Surely it were strangely inconsistent with her role of
+adventuress to permit this man to escape, now that destiny had
+delivered 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 only
+because Miss Manvers chose that juncture to furnish him--and
+incidentally herself, when she had time to think things over--with
+what was unquestionably for both of them the most staggering surprise
+of that most surprising night.
+
+Peremptorily plucking a blue-serge sleeve with the brazenest impudence
+imaginable, she advised her victim:
+
+"Take both, if you please!"
+
+Had she schemed deliberately to strike him dumb in consternation, her
+success must have afforded Sally intense satisfaction. Since she
+hadn't, her personal consternation was momentarily so overpowering as
+to numb her sense of appreciation. So that for the period of a long
+minute neither of them moved nor spoke; but remained each with a blank
+countenance reflecting a witless mind, hypnotised by the stupefaction
+of the other.
+
+Then, perhaps a shade the quicker to recover, Sally fancied that her
+victim's jaw had slackened a bit and his colour faded perceptibly; and
+with this encouragement she became herself again, collected,
+aggressive, confronting him undismayed before recognition dawned upon
+Blue Serge, and, with it, some amused appreciation of her effrontery.
+Even so, his first essay at response was nothing more formidable
+than 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 a
+little 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 man
+really was, and why.
+
+"There is!"
+
+"If you go to Boston, I go," she persisted stolidly. His countenance
+darkened transiently with distrust or temper. Then of a sudden the man
+was shaken by a spasm of some strange sort--the corners of his mouth
+twitched, his eyes twinkled, he lifted a quizzical eyebrow, his lips
+parted.
+
+But whatever retort he may have contemplated was checked by the
+accents of Authority and the tapping of an imperative pencil on the
+window-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 a
+bill from his pocket and thrust it beneath the wicket, not for an
+instant detaching his gaze from Sally. "And quick," said he; "I'm
+in a hurry!"
+
+Grunting resentfully, Authority proceeded to issue the reservations,
+thus affording Sally, constrained to return without a tremor the
+steadfast regard of her burglar, time to appreciate the lengths to
+which bravado had committed her. And though she stood her ground
+without flinching, her cheeks had taken on a hue of bright crimson
+before Blue Serge, without troubling to verify them, seized tickets
+and 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 to
+consult the mellow orb of the four-faced clock that crowns the bureau
+of 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 just
+down-stairs--"
+
+"Thank you," she agreed with a severe little nod.
+
+Lugging his bag, he led the way with the air of one receiving rather
+than 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 to
+book 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. I
+don't go in for realistic novels you see, so can't say. But you're
+right one way: it isn't anything extraordinary, come to consider it,
+that you and I, both headed for Boston, should run into each other
+here. By the way," he added with a casual air, "speaking of
+coincidences, it sort of triple-plated this one to have your friend
+from Central Office hanging round so handy, didn't it? If he's in
+sight, 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 is
+fortunate, 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 you
+must be a bird of my feather, or you wouldn't flock together so
+spontaneously."
+
+Sally opened her eyes wide and adopted a wondering drawl known to have
+been of great service to Miss Lucy Spode: "Why, whatever do you mean?"
+
+"Good!" Blue Serge applauded. "Now I _know_ where I stand. That baby
+stare is the high sign of our fraternity--of blackbirds. Only the
+guilty ever succeed in looking as transparently innocent. Too bad you
+didn't think of that in time."
+
+"I don't follow you," she said truthfully, beginning to feel that she
+wasn't figuring to great advantage in this passage of repartee.
+
+"I mean, your give-away is calculated to cramp your style; now you
+can'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're
+willing to face Sing Sing yourself. For that matter, I don't see how
+you're going to make Boston at all to-night, after that break, unless
+you go on your own; I don't believe I'm scared enough to stand for
+being shaken down for your transportation."
+
+He was gaining the whip-hand much too easily. She averted her face to
+mask a growing trepidation and muttered sullenly: "What makes you
+think I'm afraid--?"
+
+"Oh, come!" he chuckled. "I know you hadn't any lawful business in
+that house, don't I?"
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Because if you had, I would now be going peaceful, with the kind
+policeman instead of being a willing victim of a very pleasant form of
+blackmail."
+
+Burning with indignation and shivering a bit with fear of the man, she
+stopped short, midway down the ramp to the "lower level," and
+momentarily contemplated throwing herself upon his mercy and crawling
+out of it all with whatever grace she might; but his ironic and
+skeptical smile provoked her beyond discretion.
+
+"Oh, very well!" she said ominously, turning, "if that's the way you
+feel 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 fell
+upon her arm with a touch at once light and imperative.
+
+"Steady!" he counselled quietly. "This is no place for either
+bickering or barefaced confidences. Besides, you mustn't take things
+so much to heart. I was only making fun, and you deserved as much for
+your cheek, you know. Otherwise, there's no harm done. If you hanker
+to go to Boston, go you shall, and no thanks to me. Even if I do
+pay 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'm
+going to stick to you like grim death to a sick nigger's bedside until
+we know each other better. That's flat, and you may as well resign
+yourself to it. And here we are."
+
+Unwillingly, almost unaware, she had permitted herself to be drawn
+through the labyrinth of ramps to the very threshold of the
+restaurant, where, before she could devise any effectual means of
+reasserting herself, a bland head waiter took them in tow and, at Blue
+Serge's direction, allotted them a table well over to one side of the
+room, out of earshot of their nearest neighbours.
+
+Temporarily too fagged and flustered to react either to the danger or
+to the novelty of this experience, or even to think to any good
+purpose, Sally dropped mechanically into the chair held for her,
+wondering as much at herself for accepting the situation as at the
+masterful creature opposite, earnestly but amiably conferring with the
+head waiter over the bill of fare.
+
+Surely a strange sort of criminal, she thought, with his humour and
+ready address, his sudden shifts from slang of the street to phrases
+chosen with a discriminating taste in English, his cool
+indifference to her threatening attitude, and his paradoxical pose of
+warm--it seemed--personal interest in and consideration for a complete
+and, 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 that
+semi-occasional trick he practised of looking down his nose when he
+talked.
+
+On the other hand, one assumed, all criminals must seem strange types
+to the amateur observer. Come to think of it, she had no standard to
+measure this man by, and knew no law that prescribed for his kind
+either dress clothing with an inverness and a mask of polished
+imperturbability, 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 are
+alone!"
+
+She wasn't able to rise to his irresponsible humour. Thus far her
+audacity seemed to have earned her nothing but his derision. He was
+not in the least afraid of her--and _he_ was a desperate
+criminal. Then what was she in his esteem?
+
+Such thoughts drove home a fresh painful realisation of her ambiguous
+personal status. It began to seem that she had been perhaps a little
+hasty in assuming she was to be spared punishment for her sin, however
+venial that might in charity be reckoned. Chance had, indeed, offered
+what was apparently a broad and easy avenue of escape; but her own
+voluntary folly has chosen the wrong turning.
+
+Her hands were twisted tight together in her lap as she demanded with
+tense 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 be
+sure; the jewels, of course. You're anxious to know what I've done
+with them?"
+
+"Oh, no," she countered irritably; "I only ask out of politeness."
+
+"Thoughtful of you!" he laughed. "Why, they're outside, of course--in
+my 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 before
+a coat-room attendant. I remember keeping tabs one summer, and--will
+you believe me?--a common, ordinary, every-day three-dollar straw lid
+set me back twenty-two dollars and thirty cents in tips. But I hope
+I'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 joking
+when you--when you've just--"
+
+"Come off the job?" he caught her up as she faltered. "But why not? I
+feel anything but sad about it. It was a good job--wasn't it?--a clean
+haul, a clear getaway. Thanks, of course, to you."
+
+She responded, not without some difficulty: "Please! I wouldn't have
+dared 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 professional
+pride, no decent instincts, no human consideration. _They_ never
+stop to think it's tough enough for a householder to come home to a
+cracked crib without finding a total stranger to boot--a man he's
+never even _seen_ before, like as not--ah--weltering on the
+premises--"
+
+"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 pause
+during which consciousness of her disadvantage became only more acute.
+
+"Our active little friend, the yegg? Why, I didn't do anything with
+him."
+
+"You didn't leave him there'?"
+
+"Oh, no; he went away, considerately enough--up-stairs and out
+through the scuttle--the way he broke in, you know. Surprisingly spry
+on his feet for a man of his weight and age--had all I could do to
+keep up. He did stop once, true, as if he'd forgotten something, but
+the sword ran into him--I happened thoughtlessly to be carrying
+it--only a quarter of an inch or so--and he changed his mind, and by
+the time I got my head through the scuttle he was gone--vanished
+utterly 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 I
+left."
+
+"But," she demanded, wide-eyed with wonder, "why did you take that
+trouble?"
+
+"My silly conceit, I presume. I couldn't bear the thought of having
+that 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 much
+longer in suspense, considering how open-faced I've been. But here's
+that animal of a waiter again."
+
+She was willingly silent, though she exerted herself to seem at ease
+with indifferent success. The voice of her companion was like a
+distant, hollow echo in her hearing; her wits were all awhirl, her
+nerves as taut and vibrant as banjo-strings; before her vision the
+face of Blue Serge swam, a flesh-tinted moon now and again traversed
+by a flash of white when he smiled.
+
+"Come!" the man rallied her sharply, if in an undertone, "this will
+never do. You're as white as a sheet, trembling and staring as if I
+were 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, if
+it's all the same to you. But you needn't answer--needn't listen, for
+that matter. I've no pride in my conversational powers, and you
+mustn't risk losing your appetite."
+
+He seemed to find it easy enough to make talk; but Sally spared him
+little attention, being at first exclusively preoccupied with the
+demands of her hunger, and later--as the meal progressed, renewing her
+physical strength and turning the ebbing tide of her
+spirits--thoroughly engaged with the problem of how to extricate
+herself from this embarrassing association or, if extrication proved
+impossible, how to turn it to her own advantage. For if the affair
+went on this way--his way--she were a sorry adventuress indeed.
+
+Small cups of black coffee stood before them, steaming, when a
+question roused her, and she shook herself together and faced her
+burglar 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 unique
+situation. _Who are you?_"
+
+But she wasn't to be caught by any such simple stratagem as a question
+plumped suddenly at her with all the weight of a rightful demand; she
+smiled 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 own
+privacy."
+
+There fell a small pause. Lounging, an elbow on the table, a cigarette
+fuming idly between his fingers, the man favoured her with a steady
+look of speculation whose challenge was modified only by the
+inextinguishable humour smouldering in his eyes--a look that Sally met
+squarely, dissembling her excitement. For with all her fears and
+perplexity she could never quite forget that, whatever its sequel,
+this was verily an adventure after her own heart, that she was looking
+her best in a wonderful frock and pitting her wits against those of an
+engaging rogue, that she who had twelve hours ago thought herself
+better dead was now living intensely an hour of vital emergency.
+
+"But," the man said suddenly, and yet deliberately, "surely you
+won'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 gust
+of wind.
+
+"_Your_ home?" she parroted witlessly.
+
+"Mine, yes. If you can forgive me." He fumbled for his card-case. "It
+has been amusing to play the part you assigned me of amateur
+cracksman, but really, I'm afraid, it can't be done without a better
+make-up."
+
+He produced and placed before her on the cloth a small white card; and
+as soon as its neat black script ceased to writhe and run together
+beneath her gaze she comprehended the name of _Mr. Walter Arden
+Savage_, with a residence address identical with that of the house
+wherein 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 little
+laugh 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's
+such a flighty little thing--unpardonably careless. I must have warned
+her a hundred times, if once, never to leave valuables in that
+silly old tin safe. But she won't listen to reason--never would. And
+it'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 of
+accidents to which I'm indebted for this charming adventure," he
+pursued with a suavely personal nod, "beginning with the blow-out of
+the taxicab tire that made us five minutes late for this evening's
+boat. We were bound up the Sound, you understand, to spend a fortnight
+with a maternal aunt. And our luggage is well on its way there now. So
+when we missed the boat there was nothing for it but go by train. We
+taxied back here through that abominable storm, booked for Boston by
+the eleven ten, and ducked across the way to dine at the Biltmore. No
+good going home, of course, with the servants out--and everything. And
+just as we were finishing dinner this amiable sister of mine gave a
+whoop and let it out that she'd forgotten her jewels. Well, there was
+plenty of time. I put her aboard the train as soon as the sleepers
+were open--ten o'clock, you know--and trotted back home to fetch the
+loot."
+
+A reminiscent chuckle punctuated his account, but struck no echo from
+Sally's humour. Moveless and mute, the girl sat unconsciously
+clutching the edge of the table as if it were the one stable fact in
+her whirling world; all her bravado dissipating as her daze of
+wonder 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 for
+myself, forgetting to ask Adele for the combination. I knew where to
+find it, in a little book locked up in the desk; but I hadn't a key to
+the desk, so felt obliged to break it open, and managed that so
+famously I was beginning to fancy myself a bit as a Raffles when, all
+of a sudden--_Pow!_" he laughed--"that fat devil landed on my devoted
+neck with all the force and fury of two hundredweight of professional
+jealousy!
+
+"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 she
+had no longer sufficient wit to weigh. Should she confess, or try to
+lie out of it?
+
+Must she believe this glibly simple and adequate account or reject it
+on grounds of pardonable skepticism?
+
+If this man were what he professed to be, surely he must recognise her
+borrowed plumage as his sister's property. True, that did not of
+necessity follow; men have so little understanding of women's
+clothing; it pleases them or it displeases, if thrust upon their
+attention, but once withdrawn it is forgotten utterly. Such might well
+be the case in this present instance; the man gave Sally, indeed,
+every reason to believe him as much bewildered and mystified by her as
+she 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, if
+without moderating his exacting stare.
+
+"You don't understand--"
+
+She hesitated, sighed, plunged in desperation. "It's no use; there's
+nothing 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 you
+my 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 Avenue
+end, of course--with two other girls. And this afternoon--the studio
+was so hot and stuffy and lonesome, with both my friends away--I went
+up on the roof for better air, and fell asleep there and got caught by
+the storm. Somebody had closed the scuttle, and I ran across roofs
+looking for another that wasn't fastened down, and when I found
+one--it was your house--I was so frightened by the lightning I hardly
+knew 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 there
+wasn't anybody, and--I was so wet and miserable that I--made myself
+at home--decided to take a bath and--and borrow some things to wear
+until my own were dry. And then I thought . . ."
+
+She halted, confused, realising how impossible it would be to convince
+anybody with the tale of her intention merely to borrow the clothing
+for a single night of arabesque adventure, finding it difficult now to
+believe in on her own part, and hurried breathlessly on to cover the
+hiatus.
+
+"And then I heard a noise on the roof. I had closed the scuttle, but I
+was frightened. And I crept down-stairs and--saw the light in the
+library 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 gusty
+confession. "Because it's no good blinking facts: that's what I was in
+my heart of hearts. Oh, it's all very well for you to be generous, and
+for me to pretend I meant only to borrow, and--and all that! But the
+truth is, I did steal--and I never honestly meant to send the things
+back. At first--yes; then I meant to return them, but never once they
+were 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 a
+thief."
+
+"Oh, come now!" Blue Serge interjected in a tone of mild remonstrance,
+lounging back and eying the girl intently. "Don't be so down on
+yourself."
+
+"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 of
+truth. . . . But you'll never understand--never! Men can't. They
+simply can't know what it is to be clothes-hungry--starving for
+something 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. "I
+know what you mean, at any rate, even if I'm not ready to admit that
+shop-girls are the only people who ever know what it is to desire the
+unattainable. Other people want things, at times, just as hard as you
+do clothes."
+
+"Well, but . . ." She stammered, unable to refute this reasonable
+contention, but, womanlike, persistent to try: "It's different--when
+you've never had anything. Try to think what it must be to work from
+eight till six--sometimes later--six days a week, for just enough to
+keep alive on, if you call such an existence being alive! Why, in ten
+years I haven't seen the country or the sea--unless you count trips to
+Coney on crowded trolley-cars, and mighty few of them. I never could
+afford a vacation, though I've been idle often enough--never earned
+more 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 nothing
+but the goodness of my friends at times. That's why, when I saw myself
+prettily dressed for once, and thought nothing could stop my getting
+away, I couldn't resist the temptation. I didn't know where I was
+going, 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 unconscious
+of her inconsistency. "I don't deserve it. I'm caught with the goods
+on, literally, figuratively, and I've got to pay the penalty. Oh, I
+don't mean what you mean. I'm no such idiot as to think you'll have me
+sent to jail; you've been too kind already and--and, after all, I did
+do you a considerable service, I did help you out of a pretty
+dangerous fix. But the penalty I'll pay is worse than jail: it's
+giving up these pretty things and all my silly, sinful dreams, and
+going back to that scrubby studio--and no job--"
+
+She pulled up short, mystified by a sudden change in the man's
+expression, perceiving that she was no longer holding his attention as
+completely as she had. She remarked his look of embarrassment, that
+his eyes winced from something descried beyond and unknown to her. But
+he was as ready as ever to recover and demonstrate that, if his
+attention had wandered, he hadn't missed the substance of her
+harangue; for when she paused he replied:
+
+"Oh, perhaps not. Don't let's jump at conclusions. I've a premonition
+you won't have to go back. Here comes some one who'll have a word to
+say about that--or I don't know!"
+
+And he was up before Sally had grasped his meaning--on his feet and
+bowing civilly, if with a twinkling countenance, to a woman who
+swooped down upon him in a sudden, wild flutter of words and
+gestures:
+
+"Walter! Thank God I've found you! I've been so upset--hardly knew
+what to do--when you didn't show up. . . ."
+
+What more she might have said dried instantly on the newcomer's lips
+as 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 answer
+to either question, she observed in accents that had all the chilling
+force 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 of
+the woman's tone that he nearly wrung a smile even from Sally. "Do
+calm yourself--don't make a scene. The matter is quite easy to
+explain--"
+
+"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. Standish
+acknowledged her existence by an embittered nod--"do sit down, Adele!"
+
+With the manner of one whose amazement has paralysed her parts of
+speech, the woman sank mechanically into the chair which Savage
+(having thoughtfully waved away the hovering waiter) placed beside the
+table, between himself and his guest. But once seated, precisely as if
+that position were a charm to break the spell that sealed them,
+promptly her lips reformed the opening syllables of "_What does this
+mean?_"
+
+Mr. Savage, however, diplomatically gave her no chance to utter more
+than the first word.
+
+"Do hold your tongue," he pleaded with a rudeness convincingly
+fraternal, "and listen to me. I am deeply indebted to Miss
+Manvers--for my very life, in fact. Oh, don't look so blamed
+incredulous; I'm perfectly sober. Now _will_ you please give me a
+show?"
+
+And, the lady executing a gesture that matched well her look of blank
+resignation, her brother addressed himself to a terse summing up of
+the affair which, while it stressed the gravity of the adventure with
+the fat burglar, did not seem to extenuate Sally's offence in the
+least and so had the agreeable upshot of leaving the sister in a
+much-placated humour and regarding the girl with a far more indulgent
+countenance than Sally had found any reason at first to hope for.
+
+As for that young woman, the circumstance that she was inwardly all
+a-shudder didn't in the least hinder her exercise of that feminine
+trick of mentally photographing, classifying, and cataloguing the
+other woman's outward aspects in detail and, at the same time,
+distilling her more subtle phases of personality in the retort of
+instinct and minutely analysing the precipitate.
+
+The result laid the last lingering ghost of suspicion that all was not
+as it should be between these two, that Blue Serge had not been
+altogether frank with her.
+
+She had from the first appreciated the positive likeness between Mrs.
+Standish and the portrait in the library, even though her observation
+of the latter had been limited to the most casual inspection through
+the crack of the folding doors; there wasn't any excuse for
+questioning the identification. The woman before her, like the woman
+of the picture, was of the slender, blonde class--intelligent,
+neurotic, quick-tempered, inclined to suffer spasmodically from
+exaltation of the ego. And if she had not always been pampered with
+every luxury that money has induced modern civilisation to invent, the
+fact was not apparent; she dressed with such exquisite taste as only
+money can purchase, if it be not innate; she carried herself with the
+ease of affluence founded upon a rock, while her nervousness was
+manifestly due rather to impatience than to the vice of worrying.
+
+"And now," Mr. Savage wound up with a graceless grin, "if you'll be
+good enough to explain what the dickens you're doing here instead of
+being on the way to Boston by the eleven-ten, I'll be grateful; Miss
+Manvers will quit doubting my veracity--secretly, if not openly; and
+we can proceed to consider something I have to suggest with
+respect to the obligations of a woman who has been saved the loss of a
+world of gewgaws as well as those of a man who is alive and whole
+exclusively, thanks to . . . Well, I think you know what I mean."
+
+"Oh, as for that," said Mrs. Standish absently, "when you turned up
+missing on the train I stopped it at the Hundred and Twenty-Fifth
+Street station and came back to find out what was the matter. I've
+been all through this blessed place looking for you--"
+
+"Pardon!" Mr. Savage interrupted. "Did I understand you to say you had
+stopped the train?"
+
+"Certainly. Why not? You don't imagine I was going to let myself be
+carried all the way to Boston in ignorance--"
+
+"Then, one infers, the eleven-ten doesn't normally stop at One Hundred
+and 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 are
+hardly to be considered an adequate reward."
+
+"True. But you mentioned some suggestion or other--"
+
+"Without being downright about it, thereby sparing Miss Manvers
+any embarrassment, she might feel should you disapprove, as I'm
+confident you won't--"
+
+This was the woman's turn; she silenced him with a gesture of infinite
+ennui. "Why is it," she complained, "that you _never_ get anywhere
+without talking all around Robin Hood's barn?"
+
+"Objection," Mr. Savage offered promptly, "on the ground of mixed
+metaphor."
+
+"Objection sustained," his sister conceded. "But do come to the
+point."
+
+"I wish only to remind you of the news imparted by our respected aunt
+in her letter of recent date."
+
+The woman frowned slightly, as with mental effort; then a flash of
+comprehension lightened her blue eyes. Immediately her brows mutely
+circumflexed a question. A look of profound but illegible significance
+passed between the two. Mr. Savage nodded. Mrs. Standish pursed
+speculatively her thin, well-made-up lips and visibly took thought,
+according to the habit of her sex, by means of a series of intuitive
+explosions. Then she nodded vigorously and turned upon Miss Manvers a
+bewildering smile, for the first time addressing her directly.
+
+"My dear," she said pleasantly enough--though, of course, the term had
+no accent whatever of affection--"this half-witted brother of
+mine once in a while stumbles upon the most brilliant inspiration
+imaginable. I'm sure he has seen enough of you in this last hour to be
+making no mistake in offering you as one answer to a very delicate
+question which has been distressing us both for a long time. If you're
+not 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 to
+get away, to enjoy a summer by the seashore, to mix with a lot of
+mighty interesting people, and all that sort of thing--everything you
+tell me you've been pining for--if you'll consent to sail under false
+colours."
+
+"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 of
+ours is rather an eccentric--frightfully well off, spoiled,
+self-willed, and quite blind to her best interests. She's been a widow
+so long she doesn't know the meaning of wholesome restraint. She's got
+all the high knee-action of a thoroughbred never properly broken to
+harness. 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've
+ever met."
+
+"You're too modest," Mr. Savage commented abstractedly.
+
+"Be quiet, Walter. Aunt Abby's passionately fond of two things--cards
+and what she calls 'interesting people.' Neither would matter much but
+for the other. She gambles for sheer love of it, and doesn't care a
+rap whether she wins or loses. And her notion of an interesting person
+is anybody fortunate or misfortunate enough to be noticed by the
+newspapers. A bit of a scandal is sure bait for her regard . . ."
+
+Pausing, Mrs. Standish smiled coolly. "Take me, for example. Until I
+found it necessary to get unmarried, my aunt never could find time to
+waste on me. But now, in spite of the fact that the decree was in my
+favour, I'm the object of her mad attachment. And if Walter hadn't
+come into the limelight through a Senatorial inquiry into high
+finance, and made such a sick witness, and got so deservedly roasted
+by 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 rather
+dubious 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 got
+several--with a wild crew of adventurers and--esses--to call 'em
+by their first names.
+
+"They're smart enough, God knows, and they do make things hum, but
+they charge her--some of them--fat fees for the privilege of
+entertaining them. Funny things have happened at her card tables. So
+Walter and I have been scheming to find some way to protect her
+without rousing her resentment by seeming to interfere. If we could
+only get evidence enough to talk privately to some of her
+friends--about time-tables, for instance--it would be all right. And
+only recently she herself showed us the way--wrote me that she had
+quarrelled with her corresponding secretary, a spinster of acid
+maturity, and discharged her; and would we please look round for
+somebody to replace Miss. Matring. Do you see?"
+
+"You mean," Sally faltered, dumfounded--"you can't mean you'll
+recommend _me_ for the position?"
+
+"I'll do more. I'll see that you get it; I'll take you with me
+to-night, and by to-morrow noon you'll be engaged. But you must
+understand we're giving you the chance solely that you may serve us as
+well as Aunt Abby, by keeping your eyes and ears wide open and
+reporting to us in strictest confidence and secrecy anything that
+doesn't look right to you."
+
+"But--but I--but how--why do you think you can trust me?" the
+girl stammered. "Knowing what you do--"
+
+"That's just the point. Don't you see'? We can trust you because you
+won't dare betray us."
+
+"But--but after I've stolen--"
+
+"Don't say it!" Savage cut in. "You stole nothing, if you please; you
+merely 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. "Do
+be sensible, my dear, and realise that we--that I intend you shall
+have this chance. What can you possibly find to object to? The deceit?
+Surely an innocent deception, practised upon a dear old lady for her
+own good!"
+
+"Deceit," Mr. Savage propounded very sagely, "is like any other sin,
+it's only sinful when it is. That's elementary sophistry, but I
+invented it, and I'm strong for it. Besides, we've got just twenty
+minutes now to get aboard the Owl--and I've got to beg, borrow, or buy
+transportation on it, because there wasn't a room left but the two I
+bought for you and me--and now Adele will have to have one of the
+rooms--"
+
+"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--and
+you unquestionably fill my things out like another perfect
+figure."
+
+"But how will you explain? Who am I to be?
+You can't introduce me as a shop-girl out of work whom you caught
+stealing your clothes."
+
+"_La nuit porte conseil_," Mr. Savage announced sagely, and with what
+was no doubt an excellent accent. "Let Adele sleep on it, and if she
+doesn't come through in the morning with a good, old-fashioned, all
+wool, yard-wide lie that will blanket every possible contingency, I
+don't know my little sister."
+
+"An elder brother, let me tell you, Miss Manvers, is the best possible
+preceptor in prevarication."
+
+"Elder!" exclaimed the outraged young man. "Well, of all--" He turned
+appealingly to Sally. "_What_ did I tell you?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ALIAS MANWARING
+
+Fickle-minded fortune favoured Mr. Savage's belated application for
+additional sleeping-car accommodation: somebody turned back a
+reservation only ten minutes or so before train-time, in consequence
+of which Mrs. Standish and Miss Manvers enjoyed adjoining compartments
+of luxury, while Mr. Savage contented himself with less pretentious
+quarters farther aft.
+
+Thus it was that at one minute past one o'clock, when a
+preternaturally self-respecting porter dispassionately ascertained
+that nothing more would be required of him till morning and shut
+himself out of her presence, the girl subsided upon the edge of a bed
+of such sybaritic character as amply to warrant the designation _de
+luxe_, and, flushed and trembling with excitement (now that she dared
+once again to be her natural self) and with all incredulity
+appropriate to the circumstances, stared at the young woman who
+blankly stared back from a long mirror framed in the door.
+
+It was truly a bit difficult to identify that modishly dressed and
+brilliantly animated young person with S. Manvers of the Hardware
+Notions in Huckster's Bargain Basement, while reason tottered and
+common sense tittered when invited to credit the chain of accidents
+responsible for the transformation.
+
+Strange world of magic romance, this, into which she had stumbled over
+the threshold of a venial misdemeanour! Who now would dare contend
+that life was ever sordid, grim, and cruel, indigestible from soup to
+savoury? Who would have the hardihood to uphold such contention when
+made acquainted with the case of Sarah Manvers, yesterday's drudge,
+unlovely and unloved, to-day's child of fortune, chosen of a golden
+destiny?
+
+Sally's jubilation was shadowed by a pensive moment; dare she assume
+that the winters of her discontent had been forever banished by one
+wave of Chance's wand?
+
+She shook a confounded head, smiled an uncertain smile, sighed a
+little, broken sigh, and with determination bade adieu to misgivings,
+turning a deaf ear to the dull growls of mother-wit arguing that the
+Board of Health ought to be advised about the State of Denmark.
+Sufficient unto the night its room de luxe; she found her couch no
+less 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 in
+view of the ever-possible accident--cheek to pillow, face turned to
+the window that endlessly screened the sweeping mysteries of that dark
+glimmering countryside, quite resigned so to while away the night,
+persuaded it was inevitable that one with so much to ponder should be
+unable to sleep a wink.
+
+Deliberately, to prove this point, she closed her eyes. . . .
+
+And immediately opened them to broad daylight, revealing, through that
+magic casement, the outskirts of a considerable city, street after
+suburban street wheeling away like spokes from a restless hub.
+
+A simultaneous pounding on the door warned her she had but ten minutes
+in which to dress; no time to grasp the substance of a dream come
+true, no time even to prepare a confident attitude with which to
+salute the fairy godparents of her social debut--time only to
+struggle into her outer garments and muster a half-timid, deprecatory
+smile for those whom she was to find awaiting her in the corridor,
+impatient to be off, none too amiably conscious of foregone beauty
+sleep, accepting their protegee with a matter-of-course manner almost
+disillusioning.
+
+"Got to hurry, you know," Savage informed her brusquely; "only
+twenty minutes to snatch a bite before our train leaves for the
+Island."
+
+They hurried down a platform thronged with fellow passengers similarly
+haunted by the seven devils of haste, beneath a high glazed but opaque
+vault penning an unappetizing atmosphere composed in equal parts of a
+stagnant warm air and stale steam, into a restaurant that had patently
+been up all night, through the motions of swallowing alternate
+mouthfuls of denatured coffee and dejected rolls, up again and out and
+down another platform--at last into the hot and dusty haven of a
+parlour-car.
+
+Then impressions found time for readjustment. The journey promised,
+and turned out, to be by no means one of unalloyed delights. The early
+morning temper discovered by Mrs. Standish offered chill comfort to
+one like Sally, saturate with all the emotions of a stray puppy
+hankering for a friendly pat. Ensconced in the chair beside her
+charge, the patroness swung it coolly aside until little of her was
+visible but the salient curve of a pastel-tinted cheek and buried her
+nose in a best-selling novel, ignoring overtures analogous to the
+wagging of a propitiatory tail. While Savage, in the chair beyond his
+sister, betrayed every evidence of being heartily grateful for a
+distance that precluded conversation and to a Providence that
+tolerated _Town Topics_. Sally was left to improve her mind with
+a copy of _Vanity Fair_, from contemplation of whose text and pictures
+she emerged an amateur adventuress sadly wanting in the indispensable
+quality of assurance. It wasn't that she feared to measure wits,
+intelligence, or even lineage with the elect. But in how many
+mysterious ways might she not fall short of the ideal of Good Form?
+
+What--she pondered gloomily, chin in hand, eyes vacantly reviewing a
+countryside of notable charms adrowse in the lethargic peace of a
+mid-summer morning--what the dickens was Good Form, anyway?
+
+Nothing, not even her own normally keen power of observation, offered
+any real enlightenment.
+
+She summed up an hour's studious reflection in the dubious conclusion
+that Good Form had something subtly to do with being able to sit
+cross-kneed and look arrogantly into the impertinent lens of a
+camp-follower's camera--to be impudently self-conscious, that is--to
+pose 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 features
+except her eyes, and Mr. Savage smiling in precisely the reverse
+fashion.
+
+"All out," he announced. "Change here for the boat. Another
+hour, and--as somebody says Henry James says--there, in a manner of
+speaking, we all are."
+
+They straggled across a wharf to a fussy small steamer, Mrs. Standish
+leading the way with an apprehensive eye for possible acquaintances
+and, once established with her brother and Sally in a secluded corner
+of 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 induced
+by 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 corduroy
+vanished round a shoulder of the deck-house, and he bestirred himself
+to pay a little attention to Sally.
+
+"There's the Island," he said, languidly waving a hand. "That
+white-pillared place there among the trees--left of the
+lighthouse--that's Aunt Abby's."
+
+Sally essayed a smile of intelligent response. Not that the Island
+failed to enchant her; seen across a fast diminishing breadth of
+wind-darkened blue water, bathed in golden mid-morning light, its
+villas of delicious grey half buried in billows of delicious
+green, its lawns and terraces crowning fluted grey-stone cliffs from
+whose feet a broad beach shelved gently into the sea, it seemed more
+beautiful to Miss Manvers than anything she had ever dreamed of.
+
+But what was to be her reception there, what her status, what her
+fortunes?
+
+"I've been thinking," Mrs. Standish announced when a sidelong glance
+had reassured her as to their practical privacy, "about Miss Manvers."
+
+"I hope to Heaven you've doped out a good one," Savage interrupted
+fervently. "In the cold grey dawn it doesn't look so good to me. But
+then I'm only a duffer. Perhaps it's just as well; if I'd been a good
+liar I might have married to keep my hand in. As it is, I never forget
+to 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'm
+going to change your name. From now on it's Sara Manwaring--Sara
+without the _h_."
+
+"Manwaring with the _w_ silent, as in wrapper and wretch?" Savage
+asked 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 letter
+of introduction from Edna English. Edna sailed for Italy last
+Saturday, and by the time she's back Aunt Abby will have forgotten to
+question 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 paused
+a 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 family
+fortunes 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 place
+named Massillon, Ohio. It can't be done--not in a place I never heard
+of before."
+
+"Do you understand, Miss Manwaring?" the woman asked, turning an
+impatient 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 among
+department-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. Standish
+pursued sweetly. "That's all I know about you. You called at the house
+with the letter from Mrs. English yesterday afternoon, and I took a
+fancy to you and, knowing that Aunt Abby needed a secretary, brought
+you 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 letter
+of introduction?"
+
+"I mislaid it," his sister explained complacently. "Don't I mislay
+everything?"
+
+For once the young man was dumb with admiration. But his look was
+eloquent.
+
+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 last
+night, must have noticed and notified the police."
+
+"Oh, I say!" Savage exclaimed blankly.
+
+"Don't let's worry about that," Mrs. Standish interrupted. "We can
+easily let it be understood that what was stolen was later recovered
+from--whatever they call the places where thieves dispose of their
+stealings."
+
+"That covers everything," Savage insisted impatiently. "Do come along.
+There's the car waiting."
+
+Coincident with this announcement a series of slight jars shook the
+steamer, and with surprise Sally discovered that, without her
+knowledge in the preoccupation of being fitted with a completely new
+identity, the vessel had rounded a wooded headland, opening up a deep
+harbour dotted with pleasure craft, and was already nuzzling the town
+wharf of a sizable community.
+
+She rose and followed her fellow conspirators aft and below to the
+gangway, her mind registering fresh impressions with the
+rapidity of a cinema film.
+
+The grey cliff had given place to green-clad bluffs sown thick with
+cottages of all sorts, from the quaintly hideous and the obviously
+inexpensive to the bewitchingly pretty and the pretentiously ornate
+--a haphazard arrangement that ran suddenly into a plot of streets
+linking a clutter of utilitarian buildings, all converging upon the
+focal 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 as
+motor-driven, waited. In the shadow beneath it, and upon the crescent
+beach that glistened on its either side, a multitude of children,
+young and old, paddled and splashed in shallows and the wash of the
+steamer.
+
+Obviously the less decorative and exclusive side of the island, it was
+none the less enchanting in Sally's vision. A measure of confidence
+reinfused her mood. She surrendered absolutely to fatalistic enjoyment
+of the gifts the gods had sent. Half closing her eyes, she drank deep
+of salt-sweet air vibrant with the living warmth of a perfect day.
+
+A man whose common face was as impassive as a mask shouldered through
+the mob and burdened himself with the hand-luggage of the party. Sally
+gathered that he was valet to Mr. Savage. And they were pushing
+through the gantlet of several hundred curious eyes and making
+toward the head of the pier.
+
+"Trying," Mrs. Standish observed in an aside to the girl. "I always
+say that everything about the Island is charming but the getting
+here."
+
+Sally murmured an inarticulate response and wondered. Disdain of the
+commonalty 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 on
+almost equal terms with a shop-girl misdemeanant--out of gratitude, or
+sheer goodness of heart, or something less superficial?
+
+The shadow of an intimation that something was wrong again came
+between 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 luggage
+in the rear, shut the door on the three, and swung up to the seat
+beside the chauffeur. The machine threaded a cautious way out of the
+rank, moved sedately up a somnolent street, turned a corner and
+pricked up its heels to the tune of a long, silken snore, flinging
+over its shoulder two miles of white, well-metalled roadway with no
+appreciable effort whatever.
+
+For a moment or two dwellings swept by like so many telegraph-poles
+past a car-window. Then they became more widely spaced, and were
+succeeded 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 safe
+and sane pace and swung off between two cobblestone pillars into a
+well-kept wilderness of trees that stood as a wall of privacy between
+the highroad and an exquisitely parked estate bordering the cliffs.
+
+Debouching into the open, the drive swept a gracious curve round a
+wonderful wide lawn of living velvet and through the pillared
+porte-cochere of a long, white-walled building with many gaily
+awninged windows in its two wide-spread wings.
+
+Sentinelled by sombre cypresses, relieved against a sapphire sky
+bending to a sea of scarcely deeper shade, basking in soft, clear
+sunlight, the house seemed to hug the earth very intimately, to belong
+most indispensably, with an effect of permanence, of orderliness and
+dignity that brought to mind instinctively the term estate, and caused
+Sally to recall (with misspent charity) the fulsome frenzy of a
+sycophantic scribbler ranting of feudal aristocracies, representative
+houses, and encroaching tenantry.
+
+The solitary symptom of a tenantry in evidence here was a perfectly
+good American citizen in shirt-sleeves and overalls, pipe in
+mouth, toleration in his mien, calmly steering a wheelbarrow down the
+drive. Sally caught the glint of his cool eyes and experienced a flash
+of intuition into a soul steeped in contemplative indulgence of the
+city crowd and its silly antics. And forthwith, for some reason she
+found no time to analyse, she felt more at home, less apprehensive.
+
+As the car pulled up beneath the porte-cochere a mild-eyed footman ran
+out to help the valet with the luggage; Savage skipped blithely down
+and gave a hand to his sister, offering like assistance to Sally in
+turn; and on the topmost of three broad, white, stone steps the
+chatelaine of Gosnold House appeared to welcome her guests--a vastly
+different personality, of course, from any in Sally's somewhat
+incoherent anticipations.
+
+Going upon the rather sketchy suggestions of Mrs. Standish, the girl
+had prefigured Aunt Abby as a skittish female of three-score years and
+odd; a gabbling creature with a wealth of empty gesticulation and a
+parrot's vacant eye; semi-irresponsible, prone to bright colours and
+an overyouthful style of dress.
+
+She found, to the contrary, a lady of quiet reserve, composed of
+manner, authoritative of speech, not lacking in humour, of impeccable
+taste in dress, and to all appearances not a day older than
+forty-five, despite hair like snow that framed a face of rich
+but indisputably native complexion.
+
+In her regard, when it was accorded exclusively to Sally, the girl
+divined a mildly diverted question, quite reasonable, as to her choice
+of travelling costume. Otherwise her reception was cordial, with
+reservations; nothing warranted the assumption that Mrs. Gosnold (Aunt
+Abby by her legitimate title) was not disposed to make up her mind
+about Miss Manwaring at her complete leisure. Interim she was very
+glad to see her; any friend of Adele's was always welcome to Gosnold
+House; and would Miss Manwaring be pleased to feel very much at home.
+
+At this point Mrs. Standish affectionately linked arms with her
+relation and, with the nonchalant rudeness that was in those days
+almost a badge of caste, dragged her off to a cool and dusky corner of
+the panelled reception-hall to acquaint her with the adulterated facts
+responsible for the phenomenon of Miss Manwaring.
+
+"Be easy," Mr. Savage comforted the girl airily; "trust Adele to get
+away with it. That young woman is sure of a crown and harp in the
+hereafter if only because she'll make St. Peter himself believe black
+is white. You've got nothing to worry about. Now I'm off for a bath
+and nap; just time before luncheon. See you then. So-long."
+
+He blew a most débonnaire kiss to his maternal aunt and trotted
+lightly up the broad staircase; and as Sally cast about for some place
+to wait inconspicuously on the pleasure of her betters, Mrs. Gosnold
+called her.
+
+"Oh, Miss Manwaring!"
+
+The girl responded with an unaffected diffidence apparently pleasing
+in the eyes of her prospective employer.
+
+"My niece has been telling me about you," she said with an engaging
+smile; "and I am already inclined to be grateful to her. It isn't
+often--truth to tell--she makes such prompt acknowledgment of my
+demands. And I'm a most disorderly person, so I miss very much the
+services of my former secretary. Do come nearer."
+
+Sally drew within arm's-length, and the elder woman put out a hand and
+caught the girl's in a firm, cool, friendly grasp.
+
+"Your first name?" she inquired with a look of keen yet not unpleasant
+scrutiny.
+
+"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 flickered
+amusement at Mrs. Gosnold's niece. "You come from the middle West, I
+understand, 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 confessed
+shyly.
+
+"Oh? Novels?"
+
+"Not quite so ambitious; short stories to begin with and then special
+articles for the newspapers--anything that promised to bring in a
+little 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 is
+deceptive, to know the true difference between a semicolon and a
+hyphen. No matter; you have every qualification, it seems, including a
+good manner and a pleasant smile. You're engaged--on probation; I mean
+to say, for this one week we'll consider you simply my guest, but
+willing to help me out with my correspondence. Then, if you like the
+place and I like you as much as I hope I shall, you'll become my
+personal secretary at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week and all
+expenses. No--don't thank me; thank your sensible eyes."
+
+Mrs. Gosnold laughed lightly, gave Sally's hand a final but
+barely perceptible pressure, and released it.
+
+"Now Thomas will show you your room. Mrs. Standish tells me she has
+promised to outfit you; her maid will bring you more suitable things
+by the time you've had your tub and some rest. Plenty of time; we
+lunch at one-thirty."
+
+The girl stammered some sort of an acknowledgment; she was never able
+to recall precisely what she said, in truth, but it served. And then
+she was amazedly ascending the broad staircase and following the
+flunky's back down a long, wide, drafty corridor to a room at one
+extreme of the building--a small room, daintily furnished and bright
+with summery cretonne, its individual bath adjoining.
+
+"I'll be sending the maid to you at once, ma'am," said Thomas, and
+shut the door.
+
+Sally wandered to a window, lifted the shade, and looked out with
+bewildered eyes.
+
+From the front of the house to the edge of the cliff the grounds were
+as severely composed as an Italian formal garden; but to one side,
+screened by high box hedges, a tennis-court was in the active
+possession of four young people, none of them, apparently over twenty
+years 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 which
+Mrs. Standish had led Sally to expect.
+
+Thus far, indeed, Sally had failed to detect anything in the
+atmosphere of the establishment or in the bearing of its mistress to
+bear out the innuendo that Gosnold House was infested by a parasitic
+swarm and "Aunt Abby" the dupe of her own unholy passions. Doubts
+hummed in Sally's head, and she was abruptly surprised to find the
+view obscured by a mist of her own making--by, in short, nothing less
+than tears.
+
+The simple kindliness of Mrs. Gosnold's welcome had touched the
+impostor 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, that
+they could not have introduced her to this mundane paradise as her
+simple self, Miss Manvers--Sarah with the vulgar _h_--by her own
+merits and defects to stand or fall. . . .
+
+But, as though the fates were weaving the fabric of her destiny less
+blindly than is their commonly reputed custom, the young woman's
+conscience during those few first hours had little time in which to
+work upon her better nature. Its first squeamish qualms, when it at
+length got Sally alone, were quickly counteracted by a knock at
+her door and what followed--the entrance of a quiet-mannered maid
+whose fresh-coloured countenance loomed like some amiable, mature moon
+above 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 the
+rest, 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 beamed
+acknowledgment of Sally's breathless thanks and made off briskly, to
+return much too soon to suit one who would have been glad of longer
+grace in which to become more intimately acquainted with this new
+donation of her ravishing good fortune.
+
+None the less, it didn't need another double armful of beautiful
+things to satisfy Sally that, whatever and how many might be the
+faults of her benefactress, niggardliness was not of their number.
+
+"That's all for now, and Mrs. Standish's compliments, and will you be
+so kind as to stop and see her, when you're dressed, before going down
+to 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 all
+very happy to do anything we can for you. It'll be a nice change
+to be waiting on a pleasant-spoken person like yourself after that"--
+with a sniff--"Miss Matring."
+
+"Oh!" Genuine disappointment was responsible for the exclamation. But
+a moment's thought persuaded Sally she had been unreasonable to hope
+her secret might be kept from the servants. Even if Mrs. Standish had
+not betrayed it to this maid, there had been that flunky, Thomas, in
+the reception-hall close at hand during the establishment of Sally's
+status, with his pose of inhuman detachment of interest--quite too
+perfect to be true.
+
+"Beg pardon, ma'am?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" Sally swallowed her chagrin bravely. "I mean, thank you
+very much, but I'm accustomed to waiting on myself--except when it
+comes to hooks up the back--and you must have enough to keep you busy
+with so many people in the house."
+
+"Not a great many just now, ma'am--not more'n a dozen, counting in
+Mrs. Standish and her brother and you. This has been an off week, so
+to 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 her
+desire was only to be friendly; brief reflection persuaded Sally that
+it was to her own interest neither to snub nor to neglect this
+gratuitous source of information. With some guilty conceit, befitting
+one indulging in all most Machiavellian subtlety, she let fall an
+extravagantly absent-minded "Yes?" and was rewarded, quite properly,
+with a garrulous history of her predecessor's career, from which she
+disengaged only two profitable impressions: that the staff of servants
+was devoted to their mistress, and that it would little advantage a
+secretary to quarrel with the one in the hope of ingratiating herself
+with the other.
+
+So she contrived, as soon as might be without giving offence, to
+interrupt and dismiss the maid; then steeled her heart against the
+temptation to try on everything at once, and profited by long practice
+in the nice art of bathing, dressing, breakfasting, and trudging two
+miles in minimum time--between, that is, the explosion of a matutinal
+alarm 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 by
+seeming careless of the lady's whims.
+
+Consequently it was surprisingly soon that she stood, refreshed and
+comfortable in white linen, tapping at the door that Emmy, the maid,
+had designated.
+
+Another maid, less prepossessing, admitted her to the
+dressing-room of the woman of fashion; and this last greeted Sally
+with a fretful, preoccupied frown, visible in the mirror, which
+reflected as well the excellent results obtainable from discreet
+employment of a high-keyed palette.
+
+"Oh, it's you!" said Mrs. Standish shortly. "I was hoping you wouldn't
+be forever. Though you do look well in those duds. I've something
+quite important to say. You may go now, Ellen; I sha'n't want you
+again until evening."
+
+With a scowl Ellen made off, an effort of masterly self-restraint
+alone 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!" She
+jerked an impatient thumb at a telegram that lay open on the
+dressing-table. "Read that. It was waiting our arrival."
+
+Sally obeyed with an opening wonder that swiftly gave place to panic
+consternation.
+
+  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 low
+cry of dismay, sank stunned into a chair. "There's nothing for you to
+fret 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 I
+had 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 be
+some mistake; you haven't really lost anything--"
+
+"Oh, haven't I? I wish I could believe that. Don't you see what the
+telegram says--'safe cleaned out, dining-room silver gone'? That
+sounds suspiciously like a loss to me. Walter didn't 'clean out' the
+safe, and of course he didn't touch the silver. On the contrary, he's
+positive he shut the safe and fixed the combination before leaving. As
+for 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 man
+off, he simply left the scuttle closed--"
+
+"But he told me he found hammer and nails and fastened it up
+securely!"
+
+"That was just his blague; he was having a good time, pretending to be
+what you took him for--an amateur cracksman; he made up that
+story to fool you. The truth is, he made an uncommonly asinine
+exhibition, even for Walter--so excited and upset by that fight with
+the 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 right
+jewel-case. As a matter of fact, he hadn't; everything I own of any
+real value was left behind; what Walter brought me was an old case
+containing a lot of trinkets worth little or nothing aside from
+sentimental associations."
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry!"
+
+"I'm sure you are, but that doesn't mend matters. The only thing that
+will is for you to make good here and keep away from New York until
+the whole affair has blown over and, above all, never, under any
+consideration, 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 tell
+the truth--a detective, for instance. It's not unlikely that one may
+come down here to interview me. Walter is leaving for New York by the
+first boat--in hopes of preventing anything of the sort--but still it
+isn't impossible. And if it ever comes out that Walter was in
+the house last night after dark--well, you can see for yourself what
+chance we'll have of making the burglar-insurance people pay us for
+what we've lost!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FRAUD
+
+At Gosnold House that day, in an airy dining-room from which sunlight
+was jealously excluded by Venetian blinds at every long, wide window,
+creating an oasis of cool twilight in the arid heart of day, ten
+persons sat at luncheon--a meal of few and simple courses, but
+admirably ordered and served upon a clothless expanse of dark
+mahogany, relieved at each place by little squares of lace and fine
+linen, and in the center by a great, brazen bowl of vivid roses.
+
+In this strange atmosphere the outsider maintained a covertly watchful
+silence (which, if rarely interrupted, was altogether of her own
+election) and was happily guiltless of any positive fault; long
+proscription to the social hinterland of dingy boarding-houses, smug
+quick-lunch rooms, and casual studio feeding had not affected her nice
+feeling for the sensible thing at table. She possessed, furthermore,
+in full measure that amazing adaptability which seems to be innate
+with most American women of any walk in life; whatever she might
+lack to her detriment or embarrassment she was quick to mark, learn,
+assimilate, and make as much her own as if she had never been without
+it.
+
+And then--for in spite of reassurances persistently iterated by Mrs.
+Standish, the news from New York troubled her
+profoundly--preoccupation largely counteracted self-consciousness
+through those first few dreaded moments of Sally's modest social
+debut.
+
+The men on either side of her she found severally, if quite amiably,
+agreeable to indulge her reticence. Savage, for one, was secretly, she
+guessed, quite as much disconcerted by the reported contretemps in
+town; but he dissembled well, with a show of whimsical exasperation
+because of this emergency that tore him so soon away from both Gosnold
+House and his other neighbour at table, a Mrs. Artemas--a spirited,
+mercurial creature, not over-handsome of face, but wonderfully smart
+in dress and gesture, superbly stayed and well aware of it; a dark,
+fine woman who recognised the rivalry latent in Sally's dark looks
+without dismay--as Sally conceded she might well.
+
+On her other hand sat a handsome, well-bred boy of eighteen or so, one
+of the tennis four, answering to the name of Bob--evidently a cheerful
+soul, but at ease in the persuasion that comparative children should
+be seen and so forth. His partner of the courts sat next
+him--name, Babs--a frank-eyed, wholesome girl, perhaps a year his
+senior. Their surnames did not transpire, but they impressed Sally,
+and correctly, as unrelated save in community of unsentimental
+interests. The other players were not present.
+
+Aside from these, the faces strange to her were those of a Miss Pride
+and Messrs. Lyttleton and Trego.
+
+The last-named impressed her as a trifle ill at ease, possibly because
+of the blandishments of Mrs. Artemas, who had openly singled him out
+to be her special prey, and discovered an attitude of proprietorship
+to which he could not be said to respond with the ardour of a
+passionate, impulsive nature. A youngish man, with a heavy body, a bit
+ungainly in carriage, Mr. Trego had a square-jawed face with
+heavy-lidded, tranquil eyes. When circumstances demanded, he seemed
+capable of expressing himself simply and to the point, with a
+sure-footed if crushing wit. In white flannels his broad-shouldered
+bulk dwarfed the other men to insignificance.
+
+Mr. Lyttleton--assigned to entertain his hostess, and (or Mrs. Gosnold
+flattered him) scoring heavily in that office--was as slenderly
+elegant and extreme a gallant as one may hope to encounter between
+magazine covers. He had an indisputable air, a way with him, the eye
+of a killer; if he perhaps fancied himself a trace too
+fervently, something subtle in his bearing toward Mrs. Standish
+fostered the suspicion that he was almost fearfully sensible of the
+charms of that lady.
+
+Miss Pride, on Mrs. Gosnold's other hand, was a wiry roan virgin who
+talked too much but seldom stupidly, exhibited a powerful virtuosity
+in strange gestures, and pointedly designated herself as a "spin"
+(diminutive for spinster) apparently deriving from this conceit an
+amusement esoteric to her audience. Similarly, she indulged a
+mettlesome fancy for referring to her hostess as "dear Abigail." Her
+own maiden name was eventually disclosed as Mercedes--pronounced, by
+request, Mar-say-daze.
+
+From her alone Sally was conscious at the very outset of their
+acquaintance of a certain frigidity--as one may who approaches an
+open window in the winter unawares. And it was some time before she
+discovered that Miss Pride accounted her a rival, thanks to a
+cherished delusion, wholly of independent inspiration, that dear
+Abigail was a forlorn widow-woman in sore want of some thoroughly
+unselfish friend--somebody whose devotion could not possibly be
+thought 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, and
+thus was able to appreciate Savage's mental dexterity in
+discussing it with apparent candour, but without once verging upon any
+statement or admission that might count against the interests of his
+sister. 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 so
+thoroughly protected by insurance, and this the lucky victim indorsed
+with outspoken complacence, even to the extent of a semiserious
+admission that she almost hoped the police would fail to recover the
+plunder. For while many items of the stolen property, of course, were
+priceless, 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 money
+and go shopping to replenish her treasure-chests from the most famous
+jewellers of the three capitals.
+
+This aspect of the case made Mrs. Artemas frankly envious. "How
+perfectly ripping!" she declared. "I'm almost tempted to hire a
+burglar of my own!"
+
+"And then," Lyttleton observed profoundly, "if one isn't in too great
+a hurry--there's no telling--one may run across the lost things in
+odd corners and buy them back for a song or so. Anne Warridge did,
+when they looted her Southampton place, some time ago. Remember
+the year 'motor-car pirates' terrorized Long Island? Well, long after
+everything was settled and the insurance people had paid up, Anne
+unearthed several of her best pieces in the shops of bogus Parisian
+antiquaries, 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 in
+this 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. Artemas
+vanished bodily, Mrs. Standish in the car with her brother to see him
+off; Bob and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and disappeared
+forthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading overdue correspondence, Trego was
+snapped up for auction bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sally
+being elected to fourth place as one whose defective education must be
+promptly remedied, lest the roof fall in.
+
+She found it very pleasant, playing on a breeze-fanned veranda that
+overlooked the terrace and harbour, and proved a tolerably apt pupil.
+A very little practice evoked helpful memories of whist-lore that she
+had thought completely atrophied by long disuse, and she was aided
+besides by a strong infusion in her mentality of that mysterious
+faculty we call card-sense. Before the end of the second rubber
+she was playing a game that won the outspoken approval of Trego and
+Mrs. Gosnold, and certainly compared well with Miss Pride's, in spite
+of the undying infatuation for auction professed by dear Abigail's one
+true friend.
+
+It was noteworthy that dear Abigail seemed to have no interests of any
+character that were not passionately indorsed by her faithful
+Mercedes.
+
+Pondering this matter, Sally found time to wonder that Mercedes had
+not been deemed a sufficiently vigilant protector for the poor rich
+widow; it was her notion that Mercedes missed few bets.
+
+A circumstance which Sally herself had overlooked turned out to be the
+tacit understanding on which the game had been made up; and when, at
+the conclusion of the third rubber, Mr. Trego summed up the score,
+then calmly presented her with a twenty-dollar bill and some loose
+silver--Mercedes with stoic countenance performing the same painful
+operation on her own purse in favour of dear Abigail--the girl was
+overcome 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 since
+Sally's stupidity supplied an unexpected outlet. "I never could see
+the amusement in playing cards without a trifling stake--though
+I always do say five cents a point is too much for a friendly game."
+
+"It's our custom," Mrs. Gosnold smiled serenely. "You haven't
+conscientious scruples about playing for money, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, no; but"--Sally couldn't, simply couldn't confess her penniless
+condition before Miss Pride and Mr. Trego--"but I didn't understand."
+
+"That's all right," Trego insisted. "You won it fairly, and it wasn't
+all beginners' luck, either. It was good playing; some of your
+inferences 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, that
+expression being sanctioned by convention. "To-night, dear Abigail? Or
+would you like another rubber now?"
+
+Mrs. Gosnold shook her head and laughed. "No, thank you; I've had
+enough for one afternoon, and I'm sleepy besides." She thrust back her
+chair and rose. "If you haven't tried the view from the terrace, Miss
+Manwaring, I'm sure you'll find it worth while. And let your
+ill-gotten gains rest lightly on your conscience; put them in the
+war-chest against the rainy day that's sure to dawn for even the best
+players. I myself play a rather conservative game, you'll find, but
+there are times when for days on end I can't seem to get a hand
+much better than a yarborough."
+
+"Do you," Sally faltered, timidly appreciating the impertinence, "do
+you lose very much?"
+
+"I? No fear!" Mrs. Gosnold laughed again. "It amuses me to keep a
+bridge account, and there's seldom a year when it fails to show a
+credit balance of at least a thousand."
+
+If Sally's bewilderment was only the deeper for this information, she
+was sensible enough to hold her tongue.
+
+Why need Mrs. Standish deliberately have uttered so monumental a
+falsehood about the losses of her aunt at cards? She might, of course,
+be simply and sincerely mistaken, misled by over-solicitude for a
+well-beloved kinswoman.
+
+On the other hand, the gesture of Adele Standish was not that of a
+woman 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 had
+lingered, and, smiling, turned to the steps that led down to the
+terrace. "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 of
+Trego's personality less ingratiating than another's--Savage's, for
+instance, however shallow, was all ways amusing--or Lyttleton's, with
+his flashing insouciant smile, his easy grace and utter repose of
+manner.
+
+But this Mr. Trego, swinging ponderously by her side down the terrace
+walks, maintaining what was doubtless intended as a civil silence but
+what achieved only oppressiveness, of a sudden inspired a sharp
+impression that he would prove a man easy to dislike intensely--the
+sort of man who is capable of inspiring fear and makes enemies without
+any 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 her
+self-respect and his money--money which she had won in defiance of the
+rules 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 for
+drudgery, the winnings of an idle hour, the increment of false
+pretences.
+
+"There's your view," Trego's voice broke upon the reverie. "Pretty
+fine, 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's
+glance 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. He
+was unquestionably sifting his surprise for some excuse for her
+extraordinary request; a deep gravity informed his heavy-lidded eyes
+that were keen with an intelligence far more alert than she had
+previously credited.
+
+He said deliberately: "Why?"
+
+"I'd rather not say." She offered the money in her open hand. "But I'd
+feel--well, easier, if you'd take it back."
+
+He clasped his hands behind him and shook his head. "Not without good
+reason. I don't understand, and what I don't understand I can't be
+party to."
+
+She tried the effect of a wistful smile. "Please! I wish you wouldn't
+make me tell you."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't put me in such an uncomfortable position. I don't
+like to refuse you anything you've set your heart on, but my notion of
+playing 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't
+win 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 that
+kind."
+
+"How do you know I'm not?"
+
+There was a pause. Then Trego smiled oddly. "Better not ask me. You
+don't know me very well yet."
+
+She coloured faintly. "Then I must tell you you are wrong. I did
+cheat. I did, I tell you! I played for money without a cent to pay my
+losses 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 me
+here to act as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold."
+
+Trego nodded heavily. "I guessed it. I mean I felt pretty sure you
+were--well, of another world." He jerked a disrespectful head toward
+the smiling face of Gosnold House. "The same as me," he added. "That's
+why 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 had
+won 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 was
+up to her. She meant it that way. She was staking you against the
+Pride person and myself; that's why you played together; if you and
+she had lost, she'd have paid for both. So, you see, you may as well
+quit trying to make me touch that money."
+
+His sophistry baffled her. She shook her head, confused and a little
+angry in defeat, liking him less than ever.
+
+"Very well. But I don't feel right about it--and I think it most
+unkind of you."
+
+"Sorry. I only want to play the game as it lies, and this is my idea
+of doing it."
+
+There was a brief pause while Sally, at a loss, stared out over the
+shining harbour, now more than ever sensible of the profound, peaceful
+beauty of its azure floor over which bright sails swung and swayed
+like slim, tall ladies treading a measure of some stately dance.
+
+"If you ask my definition of unfair play," Trego volunteered, "it's
+this present attitude of yours--forcing a quarrel on me and getting
+mad because I stick up for my notion of a square deal!"
+
+"Oh, you misunderstand!" she protested. "I'm only distressed by my
+conception of what's wrong."
+
+"It's the worst of gambling," he complained: "always winds up in some
+sort of a row."
+
+"Why gamble, then?"
+
+"Why not? We've got to do something here to keep from yawning in one
+another'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 mining
+camps--where my father made his money. There men gambled with their
+lives. Here--_hmp!_" He grunted amusedly. "It's just enough like the
+real thing to make a fellow restless. Sometimes I wish the old man
+hadn't struck it quite so rich. If he hadn't, we'd both be happier. As
+it is, he fluffs around, making a pest of himself in Wall Street
+because he thinks it's the proper thing. And here am I, instead of
+earning dividends on what little knowledge I do happen to possess,
+sticking round with a set of idle egoists, simply because the old
+man's got his heart set on his son being in society! He won't be happy
+till 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 be
+happy, 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 third
+midnight at Gosnold House, in a state of lawless exaltation not less
+physical than spiritual and mental, a temper that proscribed sleep
+hopelessly.
+
+The window was open, the night air still and suave and warm, her sole
+protection a filmy negligee over a night-dress of sheerest silk and
+lace. And in that hour Sarah Manvers was as nearly a beautiful woman
+as ever she was to be--her face faintly flushed in the rich moonlight,
+faintly shadowed from within by the rich darkness of her blood, her
+dreaming eyes twin pools of limpid shadow, her dark lips shadowed by a
+slight 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; and
+all her body glowed, from crown of head to tips of toes nestling
+in 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 of
+all the good material things of life, had granted her as well this
+last and dearest boon. For though her years were twenty-seven she had
+not loved before. She had dreamed of love, had been in love with love
+and with being loved, had believed she loved; but nothing in her
+experience compared with such rapture as to-night obsessed her being,
+wholly and without respite.
+
+Life, indeed, grants no compensation for the ignominious necessity of
+love 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 sky
+an iridescent dome, its sea a shimmering shield of opalescence, its
+lawns and terraces argentine shadowed with deepest violet. There was
+never a definite sound, only the sibilance of a stillness made of many
+interwoven sounds, soft lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feet
+below, hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and plantations,
+sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and homeless in that vast
+serenity, wailing of a far violin, rumour of distant motor-cars. A
+night of potent witchery, a woman willingly bewitched. . . .
+
+In fancy she still could feel the pulsing of his heart against her
+bosom, the caressing touch of his hands, the warm flutter of his
+breath in her hair and upon her cheek, as in that last dance; and with
+an inexpressible hunger at once of flesh and soul she yearned to feel
+them 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 graceless
+runagate--and knew it well. She had not needed the indirect warnings
+of Adele Standish and Mercedes Pride that the man was nothing better
+than an engaging scamp. Who was she to demand worthier object for her
+love? She was precisely Nobody, and might waste her passion as she
+would, and none but herself the worse for it.
+
+Nor did it matter that her love was desperate of return. She knew that
+he recognised and was a little amused and a little flattered by her
+unspoken admiration, but more deeply than that affected not at all.
+But that was his imperial prerogative; she did not mind; temporarily
+she believed herself quite content, and that she would continue so as
+long as permitted to hug to her secret heart the unutterable sweetness
+of 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 was
+of an age to dream of love. He was not only of an admirable
+person, he wore the habit of distinction like a garment made for him
+alone. In short, the man was irresistible, and the woman didn't even
+want to resist but only despaired of opportunity ever to capitulate.
+
+She was as love-sick as a schoolgirl of sixteen; a hundred times, if
+once, her barely parted lips breathed his name to the sympathetic
+night that never would betray her: "_Donald--Donald--Donald
+Lyttleton_. . . ."
+
+Now all the while she wasted sighing for him by the window Mr.
+Lyttleton spent idly speculating about her--lounging in a corner of
+the smoking-room, on the edge of a circle of other masculine guests
+making common excuse of alcohol to defer the tiresome formalities of
+going 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 world
+into which he had been brought neither to toil nor yet to spin, but
+simply to be the life and soul of the party. And at twenty-five he was
+beyond permitting sentiment to run away with judgment; he could resist
+temptation with as much fortitude as any man, always providing he
+could 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 a
+principal fortunately beyond his power to hypothecate; he spent twenty
+thousand with an easy conscience; he earnestly desired to be able to
+spend fifty without fear of consequences. Talents such as his merited
+maintenance--failing independent means, such maintenance as comes from
+marrying money and a wife above suspicion of parsimony. If only he had
+been able, or even had cared to behave himself, Mr. Lyttleton's
+fortunes might long since have been established on some such
+satisfactory basis. But he was sorely handicapped by the weakness of a
+sentimental nature; women would persist in falling in love with
+him--always, unhappily, women of moderate means. He couldn't help
+being sorry for them and seeking to assuage their sufferings; he
+couldn't forever be running away from some infatuate female; and so he
+was forever being found out and forgiven--by women. Most men, meanly
+envious, 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 naive
+about her trouble, which was simply spontaneous combustion, one more
+of those first-sight affairs. He had noticed the symptoms immediately,
+that night of her introduction to Gosnold House. He hadn't paid much
+attention to her during luncheon, and only sought her out--when
+they got up, on the spur of the moment, that informal after-dinner
+dance by moonlight on the veranda--partly because he happened to
+notice her sitting to one side, so obviously longing for him to ask
+her, partly because it was his business to dance, and partly
+because--well, because it was less dangerous, everything considered,
+than dancing with Mrs. Standish.
+
+And then the eloquent treachery of Sally's eyes and that little
+gesture of surrender with which she yielded herself to his guidance.
+It was really too bad, he thought, especially since she had made
+occasion to tell him frankly she hadn't a dollar to bless herself
+with. Still, he must give himself credit for behaving admirably; he
+hadn't encouraged the girl. Not much, at all events. Of course, it
+wasn't in human nature to ignore her entirely after that; moreover, to
+slight her would have been conspicuous, not to say uncivil. But one
+must draw the line somewhere.
+
+To-night, for example, he had danced with her perhaps too often for
+her own good, to say nothing of his own. And they had sat out a dance
+or two--awfully old-fashioned custom; went out years ago--still, one
+did it, regardless, now and then.
+
+Curious girl, the Manwaring; one moment almost melting into his arms,
+the next practically warning him against herself. And curiously
+reticent--said she was "Nobody"--let it go at that. Very probably told
+the truth; she seemed to know nobody who was anybody; and though she
+was apparently very much at her ease most of the time, and not readily
+impressed, he noticed now and then a little tensity in her manner, a
+covert watchfulness of other women, as though she were waiting for her
+cue.
+
+At this juncture in his reverie Mr. Lyttleton peremptorily dismissed
+luckless Miss Manwaring from his mind, compounded his nightcap at the
+buffet, and joined in the general conversation.
+
+Coincidentally the reverie of Miss Manwaring at her bedchamber window
+digressed to review fragmentarily the traffic and discoveries of three
+wonderful days.
+
+Days in whose glamorous radiance the romance of Cinderella paled to
+the complexion of a sordidly realistic narrative of commonplaces;
+contemplating them, Sally, for the sake of her self-conceit, felt
+constrained to adopt an aloof, superior, sceptical pose. Conceding
+freely the incredible reality of this phase of her history, she none
+the less contended that in it no more true permanence inhered than in
+a dream.
+
+She recapitulated many indisputable signs of the instability of her
+affairs. And of all those the foremost, the most glaring, was her
+personal success, at once actual and impossible. She saw herself
+(from that remote and weather-beaten coign of scepticism) moving
+freely 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 confidence
+that was never the gesture of S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions; a
+Nobody on terms of equality with indisputable Somebodies--vastly
+important Somebodies indeed, for the most part; so much so that by
+common consent mankind had created for them a special world within the
+world and set it apart for their exclusive shelter and delectation,
+for them to live in and have their being untroubled and uncontaminated
+by contact with the commonalty.
+
+For all that, Sally couldn't see why they must be so cared for and
+catered to. The only thing that apparently distinguished them from
+those who lacked their advantages, who looked up reverently to them
+and read enviously of their doings in the papers, was their assurance,
+a quality ostensibly inimitable; yet she imitated it with seemingly
+flawless art. A contradiction that defied her wits to reconcile.
+
+She wasted time in the endeavour; her own personality was
+prepossessing; she had sufficient tact never to seek to ingratiate
+herself; her solecisms were few and insignificant, and the
+introduction of Abigail Gosnold was an unimpeachable credential.
+
+As for her antecedents, the lie which credited her to the city of
+Massillon passed unchallenged, while a conspiracy of silence kept
+private to the few acquainted with it that hideous secret of her
+department-store servitude. Mrs. Gosnold would have said nothing out
+of sheer kindness of heart even if it had not been her settled habit
+to practise the difficult arts of minding her own business and keeping
+her own counsel. Savage was still in New York, but had he been at
+Gosnold House would have imitated the example set by his amiable
+sister and held his tongue even when most exasperated with Sally. Mr.
+Trego, of course, knew no more than what he had been free to surmise
+from the girl's impulsive confession that she had been out of both
+work and money when befriended by Mrs. Standish; but, whatever his
+inferences, he kept them to himself.
+
+A simple, sincere, stubborn soul, this Mr. Trego; so, at least, he
+made himself appear to Sally, persistently seeking her and dumbly
+offering a friendship which she, in the preoccupation of her grand
+passion, had neither time nor wish to cultivate, and which he himself
+ingenuously apologised for on the plea of self-defence. He frankly
+professed a mortal dread of "these women," one of whom, he averred
+mysteriously, was bent on marrying him by main strength and
+good-will first time she caught him with lowered guard.
+
+His misgivings were measurably corroborated by the attitude toward
+Sally adopted by Mrs. Standish in her capacity as close friend, foil,
+and confidant of Mrs. Artemas. In the course of those three days the
+girl had not been insensible to intimations of a strong, if as yet
+restrained, animus in the mind of the older woman. In alarm and regret
+she did her futile best to discourage this gentleman without being
+overtly discourteous. She could hardly do more; impossible to explain
+to 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 human
+being. Of course, I know these others are all human in their way, but
+it isn't your way or mine. Perhaps it only seems so to me because I
+don't understand 'em. It's quite possible. One thing's sure, they
+don't understand me. At least, the women don't; I can get along with
+the men--most of 'em. They're not a bad lot, if immature. You can
+stand a lot of foolishness from children once you realise their
+grown-uppishness is only make-believe."
+
+"They don't know how to enjoy themselves," he expatiated; "they've got
+too much of everything, including spare time. What's a holiday to
+anybody who has never done a stroke of work? You and I know the
+difference; we can appreciate the fun of loafing between spells of
+work; but these people have got no standards to measure their fun by,
+so it's all the same to them--flat, vapid, monotonous, unless they
+season it up with cocktails and carrying on; and even that gets to
+have all the same flavour of tastelessness after a while. That's why
+so many of these women are going in for the suffragette business; it
+isn't that they care a whoop for the vote; it's because they want the
+excitement of wanting something they haven't got and can't get by
+signing a check for it."
+
+"You're prejudiced," the girl objected. "You're at loose-ends
+yourself, idle and restless, and it distorts your mental vision. For
+my part, I've never met more charming people--"
+
+"That's your astigmatism," he contended. "You've been wanting this
+society thing all your life, and now you've got it you're as pleased
+as a child with a new toy. Wait till the paint wears off and it won't
+shut its eyes when you put it down on its back and sawdust begins to
+leak out at the joints."
+
+"Wouldn't it be more kind of you to leave me to discover the sawdust
+for myself?"
+
+"It unquestionably would, and I ought to be kicked," Trego agreed
+heartily. "I only started this in fun, anyway, to make you see why it
+is you look so good to me--different--so sound and sane and wholesome
+that 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 the
+second morning after her arrival, to be at once light and interesting.
+Her employer was conservative enough in an unmannerly age to insist on
+answering all personal correspondence with her own hand; what passed
+between her and her few intimates was known to herself alone. But she
+carried on, in addition, an animated correspondence with numberless
+frauds--antique dealers, charities, professional poor relations,
+social workers, and others of that ilk--which proved tremendously
+diverting to her amanuensis, especially when it transpired that Mrs.
+Gosnold had a mind and temper of her own, together with a vocabulary
+amply adequate to her powers of ironic observation. This last gift
+came out strongly in her diary, a daily record of her various
+interests and activities which she dictated, interspersing dry details
+with many an acid annotation.
+
+When all was finished Sally found she had been busied for little
+more than two hours, and was given to understand that her duties would
+be made more burdensome only by the addition of a little light
+bookkeeping when she settled down to the routine of regular
+employment.
+
+Of the alleged high play, at cards or otherwise, she had yet, at this
+third midnight, to see any real evidence. Mrs. Gosnold most
+undoubtedly played a stiff game of bridge, but she played it with a
+masterly facility, the outcome of long practice and profound study;
+her losses, when she lost, were minimised. Nor was there ever a sign
+of cheating that came under Sally's observation. Everybody played who
+didn't dance, and vice versa, but nobody seemed to play for the mere
+sake of winning money. And while the influx of week-end guests by the
+Friday evening boat brought the number at Gosnold House up to
+twenty-two, they were all apparently amiable, self-centred folk of
+long and intimate acquaintance with one another as well as with their
+hostess and all her neighbours on the Island. Of that dubious crew of
+adventurers she had been led to expect there was never a hint.
+
+Such provision as their hostess made for her guests' entertainment and
+amusement they patronised or ignored with equal nonchalance, according
+to individual whim; they commanded breakfasts for all hours of the
+morning, and they lunched at home and dined abroad, or reversed
+the order, or sought all their meals in the homes of neighbouring
+friends, quite without notice or apology. Such was the modish manner
+of that summer of 1915--a sedulous avoidance of anything resembling
+acknowledgment of obligation to those who entertained. Indeed, if one
+interpreted their attitude at its face value, the shoe was on the
+other foot.
+
+And they brimmed the alleged hollowness of their days with an
+extraordinary amount of running about. There was incessant shifting of
+interest from one focal point to another of the colony, a perpetually
+restless swarming hither and yon to some new centre of distraction, a
+continual kaleidoscopic parade of the most wonderful and extravagant
+clothing the world has ever seen.
+
+To the outsider, of course, all this was not merely entertaining and
+novel, if much as she had imagined it would be, it was more--it was
+fascination, it was enchantment, it was the joy of living made
+manifest, it was life.
+
+If only this bubble might not burst!
+
+Of course, it must; even if not too good to be true, it was too
+wonderful to be enduring; the clock strikes twelve for every
+Cinderella, and few are blessed enough to be able to leave behind them
+a matchless slipper.
+
+But whatever happened, nothing now could prevent her carrying to
+her grave the memory of this one glorious flight: "better to have
+loved and lost--" The wraith of an old refrain troubled Sally's
+reverie. How did it go? "Now die the dream--"
+
+Saturate with exquisite melancholy, she leaned out over the
+window-sill into the warm, still moonlight, drinking deep of the
+wine-scent of roses, dwelling upon the image of him whom she loved so
+madly.
+
+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 the
+world through a mist of facile tears; that was too exquisitely, too
+poignantly true of her own plight; for, wholly as it was, her life
+could never be again.
+
+And not for worlds would she have had it otherwise.
+
+Below, in the deserted drawing-room, a time-mellowed clock chimed
+sonorously the hour of two.
+
+Two o'clock of a Sunday morning, and all well; long since Gosnold
+House had lapsed into decent silence; an hour ago she had heard the
+last laggard footsteps, the last murmured good nights in the
+corridor outside her door as the men-folk took themselves reluctantly
+off to their beds.
+
+She leaned still farther out over the sill, peering along the gleaming
+white facade; no window showed a light that she could see. She
+listened acutely; not a sound but the muttering of fretful little
+waves and the drowsy complaint of some bird troubled in its sleep.
+
+Of all that heedless human company, it seemed, she alone remained
+awake.
+
+Something in that circumstance proved almost resistlessly provocative
+to her innate lust for adventure. For upward of two hours she had been
+passive there in her chair, a prey to uneasy thoughts; now she was
+weary 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 moonstruck
+night 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 the
+corridor--little used except by servants--led to a small door opening
+directly upon the terrace. Providing it were not locked and the key
+removed, there was no earthly reason why, if so minded, she should not
+go quietly forth that way and drink her fill of the night's
+loveliness.
+
+To a humour supple to such temptation the tang of lawlessness in
+a project innocent enough was irresistible. Besides, what was the
+harm? What could be the objection, even were the escapade to be
+discovered by misadventure?
+
+Among other items in her collection of borrowed plumage she possessed
+an evening wrap, somewhat out of fashion, but eminently adapted to her
+purpose--long enough to cloak her figure to the ground, thus
+eliminating all necessity for dressing against chance encounter with
+some other uneasy soul. Worn with black stockings and slippers, it
+would render her almost invisible in shadow.
+
+In another minute, without turning on a light, she had found and
+donned those several articles, and from her door was narrowly
+inspecting the hallway before venturing a step across the threshold.
+
+It was quite empty and silent, its darkness moderated only by the
+single 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, hesitated
+for a moment of cautious reconnaissance, then darted across an open
+space of moonlight as swiftly as the shadow of a cloud wind-sped
+athwart the moon, and so gained the sheltering shadow of the high
+hedge between the formal garden and tennis-court.
+
+The dew-drenched turf that bordered the paths muffled her footsteps as
+effectually as could be wished, and keeping circumspectly in shadow,
+the better to escape observation from any of the windows, she gained
+at length that corner of the terrace overlooking the water where she
+and 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 a
+seat on the stone wall, overshadowed by the hedge, and for a long time
+sat there motionless, content.
+
+Below her the harbour lay steel-grey and still within its guardian
+headlands, a hundred slim, white pleasure craft riding its silent
+tide. Far out a Sound steamer crawled like some amphibious glowworm,
+its triple tier of deck-lights almost blended into one. Farther still
+the lights of the mainland glimmered low upon the horizon. .
+
+At a little distance, from a point invisible, an incautious footstep
+grated upon a gravel path of the terrace and was instantly hushed.
+
+But the girl, stiffened to rigidity in her place, fancied she could
+hear the whisper of grass beneath stealthy feet.
+
+Abruptly a man came out into broad moonlight and, pausing on a stone
+platform at the edge of the cliff by the head of the long, steep,
+wooden zigzag of stairs to the sands, looked back toward the
+house.
+
+Sally held her breath. But her heart was like a mad thing--the man was
+Donald Lyttleton. He still wore evening dress, but had exchanged the
+formal coat for that hybrid garment which Sally had lately learned
+should _not_ be termed a Tuxedo. The brim of a soft, dark hat masked
+his eyes. He carried one shoulder stiffly, as if holding something in
+the hollow of his arm. She could not make out or imagine what this
+might be.
+
+His hesitation was brief. Satisfied, he swung round to the stairway,
+in another instant had vanished. Only light footfalls on the wooden
+steps told of a steady descent, and at the same time furnished
+assurance that Sally had not victimised herself with a waking vision
+bred of her infatuation.
+
+The footfalls, not loud at best, had become inaudible before she found
+courage to approach the platform. With infinite pains to avoid a
+sound, she peered over the edge of its stone parapet.
+
+For a little the gulf swam giddily beneath her who was never quite
+easy at any unusual height. But she set herself with determination to
+master this weakness and presently was able to examine the beach with
+a clear vision.
+
+It was only partially shadowed by the cliffs, but that shadow was
+dense, and outside it nothing stirred. None the less, after a
+time she was able to discern Lyttleton's figure kneeling on the sands
+at the immediate foot of the cliff, a hundred feet or so to one side
+of the steps. And while she watched he rose, stood for a little
+staring out to sea, wasted a number of matches lighting a cigarette
+(which seemed curious, in view of the unbroken calm) and moved on out
+of 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 long
+again--still no sign of Lyttleton.
+
+But something else marked that second period of waiting that intrigued
+her no less than the mysterious actions of her beloved--this although
+she could imagine no link between the two.
+
+Some freak of chance drew her attention to a small, dark shape, with
+one staring red eye, that was stealing quietly across the Sound in the
+middle distance--of indefinite contour against the darkening waters,
+but undoubtedly a motor-boat, since there was no wind to drive any
+sailing vessel at its pace, or indeed at any pace at all.
+
+While she watched it incuriously it came to a dead pause, and so
+remained for several minutes. Then, deliberately, with infinitely
+sardonic effect, it winked its single eye of red at her--winked
+portentously three times.
+
+She made nothing of that, and in her profound ignorance of all things
+nautical might have considered it some curious bit of sea etiquette
+had she not, the next instant, caught out of the corner of her eye the
+sudden glow of a window lighted in the second story of Gosnold House.
+
+As she turned in surprise the light went out. A pause of perhaps
+twenty seconds ensued. Then the window shone out again--one in the
+left 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 it
+turned black again, and after another twenty seconds once more shone
+out and once more was lightless.
+
+After this it continued stubbornly dark, and by the time Sally gave up
+trying to determine precisely which window it had been, and turned her
+gaze seaward again, the boat had vanished. Its lights, at least, were
+no longer visible, and it was many minutes before the girl succeeded
+in locating the blur it made on the face of the waters. It seemed to
+be moving, but the distance was so great that she could not be sure
+which 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 flashing
+window? She was satisfied that the latter was one of a row of six
+windows to three rooms occupied by Mrs. Standish, Mrs. Artemas,
+and a pretty young widow who had arrived late Saturday afternoon and
+whose name Sally had yet to learn.
+
+She pondered it all with ever-deepening perplexity until a change came
+over the night--a wind stirred, leaves rattled, boughs soughed
+plaintively, the waters wakened and filled the void of silence with
+soft clashing. Then, shivering, Sally rose and crept back toward the
+house.
+
+But when she paused on the edge of the last shadow, preparatory to the
+dash 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 a
+row! Blessed if it ain't Miss Manwaring!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+PICAROON
+
+Plucking peremptorily at her cloak, Lyttleton drew the girl to him
+and, seizing her hand, without further ceremony dragged her round the
+clump of shrubbery to a spot secure from observation.
+
+She submitted without a hint of resistance. But she was trembling
+violently, 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 instant
+thought of you!"
+
+Controlling her voice tolerably, she asked directly: "How did you get
+up again without my seeing you?"
+
+"Simply enough--by the steps of the place next door. I saw you
+watching me--saw your head over the edge of the landing, black against
+the sky--and knew I'd never know who it was, unless by strategy. So I
+came up the other way and cut across to head you off."
+
+He added, after a pause, with a semi-apologetic air: "What do you mean
+by 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, just
+now, to see me."
+
+"Honestly?"
+
+His eyes searched hers suspiciously. Flushing, she endeavoured to
+assume some little dignity--drew up, lifted her chin, resumed
+possession 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 of
+night?"
+
+"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 what
+you're doing out here at this time of night--down on the
+beach--anxious to escape notice. If you ask me, I call that a funnier
+freak than mine!"
+
+"Quite so," he agreed soberly; "and a very reasonable retort. Only I
+can't tell you. It's--er--a private matter."
+
+"So I presumed--"
+
+"Look here, Miss Manwaring; this is a serious business with me. Give
+me 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 which
+precipitated the affair. Otherwise a question natural enough under the
+circumstances would have proved innocuous. But for the life of her she
+could not control her voice; on those simple words it broke; and so
+the question became confession--confession, accusation and challenge
+all in, one.
+
+It created first a pause, an instant of breathless suspense, while
+Lyttleton stared in doubt and Sally steeled herself, with an effect of
+trembling, reluctant, upon the brink of some vast mystery.
+
+Then: "To me?" he said slowly. "You mean me to understand you might
+lie 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 of
+defiance. She saw his eyes lighten with a singular flash, saw his face
+darken suddenly in the paling moonlight, and heard the sharp sibilance
+of his indrawn breath.
+
+And whether or not it was so, she fancied the wind had fallen, that
+the night was hushed once more, and now more profoundly than it had
+ever been, as though the very world were standing still in
+anticipation.
+
+She heard him cry, almost angrily: "Oh, damn it, I must not!"
+
+And with that she was in his arms, sobbing, panting, going to heaven
+against 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 away
+from her, found herself free at last.
+
+"You don't!" she sobbed miserably; "You don't love me. Don't lie to
+me! 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 one
+more silly woman. No; let me be, please! You do not love me--you
+don't, you don't, you don't!"
+
+He shrugged, relinquished his effort to recapture her, muttered
+uncertainly: "Blessed if I know!"
+
+Recovering a little, she drew her hands swiftly across face and eyes
+that 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 a
+touch of aggrieved resentment. "I didn't mean--I meant to--I don't
+know 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 given
+worlds--"
+
+"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 you
+talk that way to me?" he demanded wrathfully. "What have I done--?"
+
+"You? Nothing!" she broke in, roughly wrenching her hand free in a
+fury of humiliation. "Do you ever do anything? Isn't the woman always
+the aggressor? Never your fault--of course not! But don't,
+please, worry; I shan't ever remind you. You're quite free to go and
+forget what's happened as quickly as you like!"
+
+She scrubbed the knuckles of one hand roughly across her quivering
+lips. "Forget!" she cried. "Oh, if only I might ever . . . But that's
+my penance, the mortification of remembering how I took advantage of
+the 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 strange
+inconsistence, he made a futile attempt to regain her hand. "Don't be
+foolish. 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 woman
+like you--play with a man like me as if he were a child. I tell you
+I--"
+
+He checked himself with a firm hand; since, it seemed, she was one who
+took such matters seriously. "I'm mad about you," he repeated in a
+more subdued tone, "and I'd give anything if . . . Only . . . the
+deuce of it is, I can't . . ."
+
+"You can't afford to!" she snapped him up. "Oh, I understand you
+perfectly. Didn't I warn you I was penniless? You can't afford to love
+a penniless Nobody, can you--a shop-girl masquerading in
+borrowed finery! No--please don't look so incredulous; you must have
+guessed. Anyway, that's all I am, or was--a shop-girl out of
+work--before I was brought here to be Mrs. Gosnold's secretary. And
+that's all I'll be to-morrow, or as soon as ever she learns that I way
+lay her men guests at all hours and--steal their kisses!"
+
+"She won't learn that from me," said Lyttleton, "not if you hold your
+tongue."
+
+She drew back a pace, as though he had made to strike her, and for a
+moment was speechless, staring into the new countenance he showed
+her--the set, cold mask of the insolent, conquering male. And chagrin
+ate at her heart like an acid, so that inwardly she writhed with the
+pain of it.
+
+"I--!" she breathed, incredulous. "I hold my tongue! Oh! Do you think
+for an instant I'm anxious to advertise my ignominy?"
+
+"It's a bargain, then?" he suggested coolly. "For my part, I don't
+mind 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 say
+nothing, and I say nothing--why, of course--there's not much I
+wouldn't do for you, my dear!"
+
+After a little she said quietly: "Of course I deserved this. But I'm
+glad now it turned out the way it has. Two minutes ago I was wild with
+the shame of making myself so cheap as to let you--of being
+such a fool as to dream you would lower yourself to the level of a
+woman not what you'd call your social equal, who could so far forget
+her dignity as to let you see she cared for you. But, of course, since
+I am not that--your peer--but only a shop-girl, I'm glad it's
+happened. Because now I understand some things better--you, for
+example. I understand you very well now--too well!"
+
+She laughed quietly to his dashed countenance: "Oh, I'm cured, no
+fear!" 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't
+every day one met a girl who had it; whatever her social status, here
+was rare fire--or the promise of it. Nor had he undervalued her; he
+had 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 were
+true, he need only speak a word and she would be as good as thrown
+out. Even Abigail Gosnold couldn't protect her, insist on people
+inviting a shop-girl to their houses. And if such drudgery were really
+what she had come up from, you might be sure she'd break her
+heart rather than forfeit all this that she had gained.
+
+And then again she had been all for him from the very first. She had
+admitted 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 lack
+of ingenuity and diplomatics had almost lost her to him. Not quite,
+however; it was not yet too late; and though the risk was great, the
+penalty heavy if he were discovered pursuing an affair under this
+roof, the game was well worth the candle.
+
+Thus Mr. Lyttleton to his conscience; and thus it happened that, when
+she 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 that
+term of endearment, so struck her that she hesitated despite the
+counsel 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 a
+tone whose potency often had been proved. "Three words can set me
+right with you, if you'll only listen--"
+
+She said frostily: "Well?"
+
+"Three words." He drew still nearer. "I've said them once
+to-night. Will you hear them again? No--please listen! I meant what I
+said, but I was carried out of myself--clumsy--bungled my meaning. You
+misunderstood, misconstrued, and before I could correct you I'd lost
+my temper. You said cruel things--just enough, no doubt, from your
+point of view--and you put words into my mouth, read thoughts into my
+mind that never were there. And I let you do me that injustice because
+I'm hot-tempered. And then, I'm not altogether a free agent; I'm not
+my own master, quite; and that's difficult to explain. If I could make
+you understand--"
+
+Grown a little calmer, she couldn't deny there was something
+reasonable in his argument. She really had given him little chance;
+impulse and instinct had worked upon her, causing her to jump at
+conclusions which, however well founded in fact, were without excuse
+in act. If he had kissed her, it wasn't without provocation, nor
+against her will; she had got no more than she asked for. The trouble
+was, 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 the
+essentially meretricious spirit clothed in the flesh of his engaging
+person.
+
+It had been a simple and perhaps inevitable infatuation of a mind all
+too ready to be infatuated, needing heroic treatment--such as she'd
+had and blushed to remember--to cure. And the shock of waking
+from that mad dream, no less than the shock of physical contact, had
+made 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 knew
+to be untrue, as if the compliment of it must be a balm to a spirit as
+bruised as her own!
+
+He went on: "And all this because I seemed to hesitate--because I did
+hesitate, knowing I couldn't say all I wanted to. And before I could
+explain--"
+
+"You're not married?" she inquired with an absence of emotion that
+should have warned him.
+
+"Of course not. But I'm dependent, and good for nothing in a business
+way. My income is from my family, and depends on their favour. What
+can 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 resist
+him, 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 get
+the 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, mad
+about you!"
+
+With no more warning he lowered his head, fastening his lips to
+the curve of her throat; and discovered suddenly and definitely his
+error. In a twinkling it was a savage animal he held in his arms, and
+before he knew what was happening she had broken his grasp and he was
+reeling back with a head that rang from the impact of an open hand
+upon his ear.
+
+"You shrew!" he chattered. "You infernal little vixen! And I
+thought--!"
+
+He sprang toward her, beside himself, with a purpose that failed only
+through the intervention of a third party.
+
+A man swinging suddenly round the end of the hedge shouldered between
+Lyttleton and the object of his rage--a man whose bulk, in the loose
+flannels 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 the
+household? If you do, and get kicked out, you'll never get another
+chance on this island, my friend."
+
+"Damn your impudence!" Lyttleton stuttered, sufficiently recalled to
+his 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 want
+a thrashing in the presence of a lady, you'll do nothing foolish."
+
+With this he released Mr. Lyttleton in such wise that he was an
+instant 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 stay
+upon their brawling.
+
+If his look was vicious, his tone was subdued as he stood brushing off
+the dust of his downfall.
+
+"Lucky you came when you did," he said, with an effort to seem
+composed. "I presume I ought to thank you for knocking me about. This
+confounded temper of mine will get me into serious trouble yet if I'm
+not careful. I was driven pretty nearly wild by that little devil--"
+
+"Cut it right there!" Trego interrupted sharply. "I don't know
+anything about your row--didn't hear a word that passed between you
+two--and it's none of my business. But if there's any blame to be
+borne, you'd better shoulder it yourself, for I warn you, I'm not
+going to hear any woman called names by a pup like you!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+LEGERDEMAIN
+
+With a mind half distracted, the battlefield of a dozen unhappy
+emotions of which the most coherent were seething self-reproach and
+frantic irritation with Trego (why must it have been he, of all men?)
+Sally inconsiderately left the two to conclude their quarrel without
+an audience--took to her heels incontinently and sped like a hunted
+shadow across the open lawn. She flung through the side door and left
+it wide, stumbled blindly up-stairs to her bedchamber door, and shut
+this last behind her with no anticipation so fond as that of solitude
+and freedom to cry her eyes out.
+
+But she had no more than turned from the door toward her bed, in the
+same movement shrugging off her black cloak and letting it fall
+regardless to the floor, when she became aware that solitude was no
+more in that room, that she shared it with an alien Presence--a shape
+of misty pallor, filling the armchair, silhouetted vaguely against the
+moonlight 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 fixed
+regard of its coldly hostile eyes.
+
+"Who are you?" she demanded in a choking whisper. "What are you doing
+here? What do you want?"
+
+"Where have you been?" the Presence retorted in a level voice
+instantly identified as that of Mrs. Standish. "What have you been
+doing"--a spectral arm gestured vaguely toward the terrace--"out
+there?"
+
+Sally took firm hold of herself and mustered all her wit against this
+emergency.
+
+"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 held
+herself well in hand.
+
+"It was so late," she explained, "I didn't think it possible there'd
+be anybody else about."
+
+"Of course you didn't." The woman's tone was saturated with hateful
+innuendo. "On the other hand, you soon discovered your mistake, didn't
+you?"
+
+Sally muttered a sullen "Yes . . ."
+
+"You're wise not to lie I to me," her patroness remarked with just a
+suspicion of satisfaction. "I knew, you see. I've been sitting here,
+waiting, the better part of an hour, listening to you two bickering
+behind the hedge. You little fool!"
+
+Sally said nothing. Her mood was all obsessed now with the conviction
+that 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 her
+hands.
+
+"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--and
+mine. I have assumed responsibility for you; but I cannot permit you
+to make me answerable for the antics of a man-crazy woman. If you
+can't behave yourself and refrain from annoying my aunt's guests, you
+must go. I thought you understood that."
+
+"Of course," the girl muttered. "You didn't think I expected anything
+else, did you?"
+
+"Who was the man you followed out there?"
+
+The calculated offensiveness of this was balanced by its sudden
+revelation to Sally's mind of the fact that Mrs. Standish didn't know
+there had been two men. It was, however, true that the window did not
+command 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 which
+I 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 my
+house--that I first saw you wearing clothes stolen from me? You told a
+story, but how do I know it was true? You may well have been an
+accomplice 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 in
+revenge. Judged by your conduct here, I'm sure you're capable of
+anything. Or you may have thought you saw a way to win greater profit
+by aiding my brother."
+
+"That's all nonsense," Sally retorted hotly, "and you know it."
+
+If dismissal from Gosnold House were inevitable, then there was no
+reason why she should not call her soul her own.
+
+A pause was filled by the dramatic effect of Mrs. Standish nobly
+holding 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 dubious
+history, I have every right to take it for granted you went to meet an
+accomplice in crime--"
+
+"Oh, rot!" Sally interjected impatiently.
+
+And then, encouraged by consciousness of her audacity, she let her
+temper run away with her for an instant.
+
+"All that's no good," she declared forcibly, "and you know it. If you
+mean to speak to Mrs. Gosnold about me in the morning, and have me
+sent away merely because I've had an unpleasant experience and refuse
+to discuss it with you--when it's none of your affair--why, I can't
+stop you. But I'm not a child, to be bullied and browbeaten, and I'm
+certainly not going to humour your curiosity about my private
+business. And that's flat. Now run and tell, if you really must--but
+you 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 in
+mind, 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 worry
+about that--but I'll go on my own excuse. If you tell on me, I'll tell
+on you, and I'll tell everything I know, too."
+
+"And what, please," the woman purred dangerously, "do you think you
+know--?"
+
+"What about your signalling that yacht just now?"
+
+It was shot at a venture; she had no real knowledge that the lighted
+window had been that of Mrs. Standish's bedroom; but it was just
+possible, and she chanced it, and it told, though she was not yet to
+know that with any certainty.
+
+"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Standish hesitated with a hand on
+the door-knob.
+
+"You know well enough. I saw what I saw. People don't do things like
+that unless there's something secret about it, something they don't
+want known."
+
+"I think you must be out of your head," the woman responded with
+crushing hauteur. "I haven't the slightest notion what you mean, and
+you needn't trouble to enlighten me. I don't in the least care. But
+you may sleep on this--that your insolence shall be properly rewarded
+as 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 the
+sound that she had expected of the door closing did not come, and
+after a minute she looked round to find Mrs. Standish still at pause
+upon the threshold.
+
+"Oh," said Sally, with an impertinent assumption of remedying an
+oversight, "good night, I'm sure!"
+
+Instead of audible reply, the woman shut the door and turned back to
+the 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 in
+the end. Perhaps I was unpleasant and too exacting just now; but, you
+must admit, I really know little or nothing about you, and have every
+right to watch you closely."
+
+She paused, as if expecting an answer; but before Sally could overcome
+her astonishment she resumed in the same level, reasonable tone:
+
+"I was greatly distressed when I came here and found you had gone out
+at this hour of the night: certainly, you must allow, a queer
+proceeding on the part of a young woman in your position. And
+when you come back, after a long talk with a strange man in the
+shelter of a hedge, and refuse to give an account of yourself, I
+confess you exasperated me. At the same time, accidents do happen; and
+it's true you have rights of privacy that even I must respect--to whom
+you owe a great deal, you must admit. And now I think I've gone as far
+toward making amends as even you could ask."
+
+Astonishment and incredulity yielded to penitence. Sally sat up with a
+little gesture of contrition and appeal--an outflung hand instantly
+withdrawn; this was not a woman whose susceptibilities were to be
+touched 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 the
+tension 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 her
+shoulder; no more than that. And when she had spent herself in tears
+and grew more calm, it was to find Mrs. Standish seated opposite her
+and waiting patiently; at all events with a fair imitation of that
+virtue.
+
+"Please," Sally begged between gulps, "please forgive me. I'm so
+excited 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 was
+steadfast to her secret purpose. "Forget that. It doesn't matter. I
+had no right to ask, and really do not care to know. But if you're
+quite able to pay attention, I'd like to consult with you--about what
+got 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, until
+I felt as if I must talk to somebody--and you are the only one I can
+trust."
+
+Sally stared in a state of dumb bewilderment that eclipsed all she had
+experienced 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 so
+inconsiderate; simply because he knew how things were going--and I
+presumed they must have been going well--Walter left me without a word
+till this evening. Then he telegraphed he'd be here to-morrow
+afternoon and that everything was all right; but that he is bringing
+with him one of the adjusters for the burglar-insurance people--a
+detective, I presume, the man is, really--and I'll have to answer some
+questions 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 a
+matter of formality, and I oughtn't to be silly about it, but I can't
+help it. I've been on edge ever since, fretting for fear something
+would 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 to
+produce what jewelry I have with me--well, I simply can't think what
+to do."
+
+"Why not hide the case?"
+
+"That's just it. But where? I can't imagine. Of course I can't very
+well 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 connection
+whatever with the affair. It'll be perfectly safe here, in your
+keeping, until you find a way to dispose of it. To-morrow night, for
+instance, 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 the
+sand. Anything. Nobody will pay any attention if you excuse yourself
+to go to your room or out to the terrace for half an hour. But
+I--well, you must see. I've hidden the case under your pillow. You may
+find some better place for it--but then you haven't a maid to
+hoodwink. 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 I
+could depend on you. And--let us forget our little misunderstanding.
+I've forgotten it already."
+
+She had left the room before Sally could formulate reasonable
+protest--reasonable, that is, remembering her burden of obligation to
+this woman.
+
+It was an hour later before she at length settled upon satisfactory
+concealment for the incriminating jewel-case--in the recess behind a
+bureau-drawer, where it fitted precisely in the wrappings she did not
+trouble to remove.
+
+In the grey twilight of the dawn at last, she flung herself upon the
+bed--and fell instantly asleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+In the sequel to that night of mischief and misadventure Sarah Manvers
+had sound reason to be thankful for the resilient youth which still
+animated her body. But of course she wasn't; youth will ever misprize
+till it must mourn its blessings.
+
+Yet by virtue of that inestimable attribute alone was she able to do
+with only four hours' sleep (when Adele Standish, for example, needed
+eight, and then was seedy) and be the first of the household to appear
+for breakfast--clear of eye and fresh of colour, with a countenance as
+serene as her temper and a temper as normal as her appetite.
+
+As for this last, she made an excellent breakfast, alone in the
+sun-bright dining-room. And if at times, as she sat and munched, her
+look was pensive and remote, this was due less to misgivings than to
+mystification.
+
+The quarrel and reconciliation with Mrs. Standish had cleared the
+atmosphere of their relations; henceforward there could be no more
+misunderstanding; they hated each other heartily; neither
+entertained any illusion as to that; but their interests were too far
+interdependent to license any play of private feeling. Sally wanted to
+stay on at Gosnold House, and Mrs. Standish was resigned; Mrs.
+Standish wanted her insurance money, and Sally would help her get
+it--by keeping quiet. Sally might be dealt with severely by the law if
+Mrs. Standish said the word, and Mrs. Standish, if Sally spoke, would
+suffer not only in her pocketbook, but in the graces of her aunt.
+
+But Sally was not without compunction in respect to the deception
+practised on her still prospective employer. It wasn't possible to
+know Mrs. Gosnold and not like her; if that personality enforced
+respect, it was a lodestone for affection, and Sally meant with all
+her heart to serve faithfully and well; if she was to have her way,
+neither would know a single regret because of their association until
+time and chance conspired to sunder it.
+
+Then, too, sleep had appreciably changed the complexion of her mind
+toward the Lyttleton episode. She was not yet able to recall that
+chapter of infatuation without a cringe of shame; but that would pass
+with time, and the experience had not been without a value already
+apparent. For even as she had said to him, she was cured--and more
+than cured, she was instructed; she was not only better
+acquainted with herself, but had learned to read the Lyttleton
+temperament too well ever to require repetition of the lesson. If she
+had played the fatuous moth, she had come through cheaply, with wings
+not even singed; for what she had taken for flame had proved to be no
+more than cheapest incandescence. She felt so sure of all this that
+she could even contemplate the affair with some inklings of the
+amusement that it would yet afford her. And she was fixed to make this
+the key of her attitude toward the man in all such future intercourse
+as was unavoidable.
+
+But Trego . . .
+
+Trego was a horse of another colour altogether. The very name of Trego
+was hateful in her hearing. There was little she would not willingly
+have done, however unjust and unfair, to avoid further communications
+with this animal of a Trego.
+
+And yet, as she had learned, the term of his stay at Gosnold House had
+still another week to run, and he was in some way a favourite and
+intimate of Mrs. Gosnold, apt frequently to figure as her guest; and
+since this was so, and Sally herself bade fair (barring accidents) to
+prove a fixture in the household, it seemed inevitable that they must
+be often thrown together. So she must at all costs school herself to
+treat him civilly--at least without overt animosity.
+
+She could imagine no task more difficult or distasteful; short of
+forfeiting her place in this new sphere, she would have paid almost
+any price for remission of that duty.
+
+The irony of life seemed a bitter draft. Granting it had been
+requisite to some strange design of fate, in its inscrutable vagary,
+that several persons should suffer a night of broken rest at Gosnold
+House, why must they have been those four and none other--Sally, Adele
+Standish, Lyttleton, Trego? Especially Trego! Why that one? Palpable
+bonds of mutual interest linked the three first named; their common
+affliction might conceivably have been ascribable to subtle
+psychological affinity. But Trego was well outside the triangle, even
+as perceptibly out of sympathy with a majority of Mrs. Gosnold's
+guests.
+
+Mrs. Standish was studious in her avoidance of him without appearance
+of open slight. His nature and Lyttleton's were essentially
+antagonistic. Sally's animus had been well defined from the very
+beginning, when she had resented his being both physically and
+temperamentally so completely out of the picture of that existence to
+which she aspired.
+
+But reconnaissance up that dark alley demonstrated it an indisputable
+impasse and Sally gave it up, reserving the grievance for tender
+nursing (she had a very human weakness for selected wrongs) and
+turned her attention to the puzzle involving Lyttleton's business on
+the beach at 2 A. M. and the signals exchanged between yacht and
+window.
+
+Nor did she make much headway in this quarter. Instinct indicated a
+delicate harmony between those events and the formless shadow to which
+Sally had all along been sensitive, of something equivocal in the
+pretensions of Mrs. Standish. But that clue played will-o'-the-wisp
+with her fancy, leading it ever farther astray in a bottomless bog of
+black bewilderment.
+
+None the less, she had just succeeded in establishing to her own
+satisfaction the probability that her sponsor had been, if not active
+in, at least acquainted with the business of the signals--reasoning
+shrewdly upon that lady's high-handed treatment of Sally's insinuation
+as inconsequential--when Mr. Trego elected to appear for breakfast.
+
+That unhappy young man had been more wise if he had not taken it for
+granted that nine o'clock would be too early for Sally as well as for
+everybody else who didn't make breakfast in bed a habit; and a more
+diplomatic person would have been at pains to prepare himself against
+that inevitable rencontre with a young woman of exacerbated
+sensibilities. Nothing could have been more surely predestined to
+ghastly failure than his cheerful assumption of a complete
+understanding, with the hint implicit that, having done Sally a
+signal service, he was willing to let bygones be bygones and take as
+tacit a sense of obligation not easy for her to express.
+
+"Hel-lo!" he saluted the charming vision of her with undisguised
+pleasure and surprise. "You down already? Why, I made sure I had at
+least 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, this
+early rising, you know; it's not really clawss; it isn't done."
+
+Sally said nothing. It was safer not to. And cheerfully unaware of her
+self-restraint, Trego armed himself with a plate and foraged at the
+side-table, with its array of silver-hooded hot-water dishes.
+
+"Been for a swim," he volunteered with a thrill of coarse creature
+satisfaction in his tone. "Wonderful water along this coast--not too
+warm, like the Jersey beaches--to my taste, anyway, and not too
+all-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 the
+world 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. "But
+that 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," Trego
+declared. "It's only in anticipation, when you're snug between sheets
+and debating the rival claims of the distant beach and your handy
+bathtub; then, I grant you, the climb up the cliff weighs heavily in
+the scale of disadvantages."
+
+He drew out the chair adjoining Sally's and attacked the half of an
+iced canteloup, but after the first mouthful put down his spoon.
+
+"Sugar, please," he said with a deprecatory grimace, indicating the
+bowl just beyond the girl's place. "I know I ought to go in for salt
+if I want to come through as a regular guy; but if you won't tell on
+me, I'm going to enjoy this melon in my own primitive Western way.
+Thanks."
+
+He committed the unpardonable deed with a liberal hand. "Frightfully
+weird, you know," he mimicked with a chuckle, adding: "It takes the
+rude, untutored mind of a barbarian to be satisfied with sweetening a
+thing with sweetness instead of bitterness, doesn't it'?"
+
+"But I prefer salt myself," said the girl; "it brings out the
+flavour."
+
+She concluded her defence in some confusion due to Trego's practically
+synchronous utterance of her identical phrase: "it brings out the
+flavour." Then she realised that he had deliberately trapped her
+and was meanly laughing in the triumph of his low cunning. And she had
+to laugh, too, to save her face; but it was an empty laugh and
+accompanied by a flush that might have warned the man had he not too
+soon returned attention to his melon.
+
+"Never fails," he remarked. "Though, of course, it isn't safe to work
+it on anybody in this outfit--not, at least, unless you're pretty
+sure 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. O
+table-talk! where is thy sting--when a fellow knows all the answers?"
+
+He rose, set aside the shell of the maltreated melon, and returned
+with his plunder from the hot-water dishes, to find Sally on the point
+of 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. I
+want to ask your advice. I'm puzzled. Maybe you can suggest
+something."
+
+She couldn't well go, then, without betraying umbrage, so she settled
+herself with a resigned temper, and for want of a better lead
+contented herself with a conversational stop-gap--"Puzzled?"--spoken
+in an encouraging tone.
+
+"Yes. Something I noticed this morning. But it weaves into last
+night--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 his
+chair.
+
+"You see . . ." Some intimation of his gaucherie made him stumble. "Of
+course," he went on, semi-apologetic, "you understand that I'm going
+on 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've
+reminded 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 to
+behave like grown-ups. Only, a fellow never can tell where he stands
+with most of these festive dames. I've been lorgnetted until I'm
+scared to open my mouth. But with you--well, it's like meeting
+somebody 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 me
+up was Lyttleton. He has the room next mine, you know. I'd just turned
+out my bedside light--been reading, you understand--when I heard his
+door open very gently and somebody go pussy-footing down the
+hall. And for some reason that kept me awake--because it was none of
+my business, I guess--waiting for him to come back and wondering what
+in thunder took him out on the prowl like that. And when I had
+wondered myself wide awake I got up and dressed--thought I'd take a
+walk, too, since the night was so fine. I honestly had no idea of
+following him--that was all an accident, my butting in the way I did."
+
+Sudden perception of a footing upon ground properly taboo even to
+angels caused the man to flush brick-red. His eyes sought Sally's in
+honest consternation.
+
+"Hope you don't mind," he mumbled.
+
+"Please go on," she said, conscious of the heat in her own cheeks, and
+holding him in an esteem proportionately more poisonous.
+
+"Well. About this morning: As I say, I went down to the beach for a
+dip. You know how that beach is--about a twelve-foot breadth of sand
+from the bottom of the cliff when the tide's high, with about twenty
+feet more when it's low. So foot-prints show until the weather rubs
+them out--takes a tolerable storm, as a rule. Below high-water mark
+it'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 below
+it, or at quarter-tide mark--I noticed the print of a rowboat's
+bows on the sand. It had landed there and waited a while--drawn up
+only part way out of the water--about three o'clock this morning. Two
+men had got out; one waited with the boat, the other went up toward
+the 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, and
+presently he turned round and went back to the boat, and the two of
+them shoved her off again--trusting, I guess, to the tide to cover up
+the signs of their landing.
+
+"Why they should want to be secret about it, God only knows; but if
+they didn't, why three o'clock? It's all private beach along here, and
+whereas I believe there are no property rights below high-water mark,
+and anybody has a right to land anywhere in an emergency--where was
+the emergency? There was no gale last night, and if there had been,
+you'd think distressed mariners would have sense enough to come ashore
+farther along, toward the village, where they could find shelter--and
+all that. The more I think about it, the funnier it looks to me."
+
+He finished his breakfast and his statement at the same time, pushed
+back 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 can
+you 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 high
+at one eleven this morning and low at seven thirty-five--just about
+an hour turned when I had my swim, the water-line then about twelve
+feet short of the marks of the boat. It'll be high again about one
+forty-eight this afternoon--at least noon before water begins to wash
+over 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 they
+left any clues or not."
+
+Constrained to fill in his expectant pause, she made shift with a "How
+very 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 to
+fit this new development into the adventures of Lyttleton and the
+lighted window--and make sense of it. "I can't imagine--"
+
+"What I want to know is this," Trego propounded cunningly: "had
+Lyttleton anything to do with it?" She had prepared for that question,
+had settled her answer beforehand; even with any real reason to
+suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something underhand, she would not
+have 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 think
+he--?"
+
+"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 a
+word of excuse took her scarlet cheeks out of the dining-room and back
+to her bedchamber.
+
+On the dot of their standing appointment she found Mrs. Gosnold
+unconsciously, perhaps, but none the less strikingly posed in the
+golden glow of her boudoir window for the portrait of a lady of
+quality on fatigue duty--very much at her ease in a lavender-silk
+morning gown and stretched out in a _chaise longue_, a tray with
+fruit, coffee and rolls on her left dividing attention with a sheaf of
+morning notes on the other side and the portable writing-case on her
+knees.
+
+Acknowledging Sally's appearance with a pleasant if slightly
+abstracted smile, she murmured: "Oh, is it you, Miss Manwaring? Sit
+down, please. Half a minute . . ."
+
+On the _qui vive_ for any indication that Mrs. Standish had been false
+to her word or Mrs. Gosnold informed through any other channel of the
+secret history of that night and consequently inclined to hold her
+secretary in distrust, Sally detected nothing in the other's manner to
+add to her uneasiness. To the contrary, in fact. She sat and watched
+in admiration, and thought that she had never known a woman better
+poised, more serenely mistress of herself and of the technique of
+life. If Mrs. Gosnold nursed a secret sorrow, anxiety, or grievance,
+the world would never learn of it through any flaw in the armour of
+her self-possession.
+
+She wrought busily with a fountain pen for little longer than the
+stipulated period of delay, then addressed and sealed a note and
+looked up again with her amiable, shrewd smile.
+
+"Good morning!" she laughed, quite as if she had not till then
+recognised 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 the
+heavens fell--only such minor fibs as are necessary to lubricate the
+machinery of society. She would do her best, of course, to
+preserve the hateful truth that had been so cunningly covered up by
+the lies of Mrs. Standish's first invention; but she would do that
+best, if possible, more by keeping silence than by coining and
+uttering fresh falsehoods.
+
+"Not so well last night," she confessed. "I don't know what was the
+matter 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 have
+forgotten these midsummer moonlight nights of ours. When I was a girl
+and being courted, from this very house, I know I used to wait until
+everybody had gone to bed and creep out and wander for hours . . ."
+
+Her pause invited confidences. And momentarily Sally's heart thumped
+like 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 every
+woman--once too often to most. And it's well to take one's time
+nowadays. Perhaps it's a sign of age, and I shouldn't own it, but it
+does seem to me that the young men of to-day are an uncommonly godless
+crew. I should be sorry to have you make a mistake . . ."
+
+She contented herself with that much warning and no more; but
+Sally knew their thoughts were one, focused upon a singular though by
+no means strange example of the young men of the present day.
+
+"I think," her employer pursued, with a look excusing the transient
+keenness of her scrutiny, "our Island air agrees with you. If you have
+had one poor night, all the same you're quite another girl than the
+one who came here--was it only four days ago? I hope you're quite
+comfortable."
+
+"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 quick
+and willing--and you humour my weakness for the respect of my
+associates. I don't ask for their dependence. If you like, we'll say
+your engagement begins to-day, the first of the week."
+
+"You are very kind."
+
+"I'm very selfish. I like intelligence, prettiness, and youth--must
+have them at any cost! So that's understood. Of course, there are
+certain questions to be settled, arrangements to be made. For example,
+I assume responsibility for your losses at bridge, because playing
+when I wish you to is one of your duties. But these matters adjust
+themselves as they come up from time to time."
+
+"Thank you," said Sally in a tone that, though little more than a
+whisper, was more eloquent of her gratitude than the mere phrase could
+possibly 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 a
+boudoir secret."
+
+"I'll never--"
+
+"And a secret of Polichinelle besides," the other laughed; "everybody
+I know or care a snap for knows it. At the same time, no woman cares
+to have her age discussed, even if it is public property and she quite
+old enough to be beyond such vanity. No matter; I'm going to call you
+Sara, if you've no objection."
+
+"Why not Sally?" the girl suggested tentatively. "That's my name--I
+mean, what I'm accustomed to."
+
+"Thank you; I like it even better," Mrs. Gosnold affirmed. "I'm
+conservative enough to favour old-time names. My own, for instance,
+Abigail, pleases me immensely, though I seldom meet a young woman
+these days who can hear it without looking either incredulous or
+as though she doubted the sanity of my sponsors in baptism."
+
+She stayed the obvious reply with an indulgent toss of a hand still
+fair.
+
+"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 the
+dog-cart--no, to save time, one of the motors. We must give these good
+people as much time as possible, considering it's a spur-of-the-moment
+affair. That is why, you understand, there are so few
+invitations--because I'd no time to write and post a number. But each
+of these is a bid to some friend with a houseful of people to come and
+bring 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's
+whim. Every so often I break loose this way and keep my memory green
+as 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't
+exerted myself except when bored to extinction by the deadly
+commonplace amusements most people offer us.
+
+"For some time I've had this in mind, and everything prepared; you
+may, if you like, call it a spontaneous masquerade by moonlight. Half
+the fun of such affairs comes of the last-moment, makeshift
+costumes; if you give people much time to think them up it is always a
+stiff and frigid function. Moreover, it demands a perfect night--and
+we can't count on our Island weather twenty-four hours in advance. But
+to-day is perfect, and to-night will be fair with the moon at its
+full. You may dance on the veranda or make love on the terrace, just
+as you please, from ten o'clock till three--or later. Supper will be
+served from midnight on. At one we shall unmask.
+
+"As I say, all preparations had been made, weather permitting; I had
+merely to telephone the caterers, electricians, and musicians, and
+scribble these invitations. I'd advise you to arrange your day to
+include a good long nap before dinner, for you'll be up till all hours
+very likely. I fancy I can promise you some fun."
+
+Mrs. Gosnold ceased upon a note of mischievous enjoyment in
+anticipation that would have suited a girl of sixteen, then analysed
+the trouble behind Sally's perturbed countenance.
+
+"As for your costume, you're not to give it a thought! I have arranged
+for it to be brought to your room at half past nine, and I pledge you
+my word you'll find it becoming. I have only two requests to make of
+you: that you refrain from unmasking or admitting your identity until
+one 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 thank
+you."
+
+"Leave that, too, to me. It's quite possible I may suggest a way."
+Mrs. Gosnold smiled curiously as at a thought reserved. "Now run
+along--order the car and put on your prettiest hat. But a moment!"
+
+She illustrated the process of taking thought by puckering her brows
+and clipping her chin between a thumb and forefinger.
+
+"Let me see. Have I remembered everybody?" She conned, half aloud, a
+list of names. "But no! What an oversight! I should never have
+forgiven myself--or have been forgiven. And my fountain pen needs
+refilling. No"--as Sally offered to take the pen--"sit there at the
+desk and write at my dictation. I will sign it."
+
+Obediently Sally took her place at the escritoire, arranged a sheet of
+the monogrammed note-paper used by Mrs. Gosnold for correspondence
+with personal friends (as distinguished from the formal letter-head of
+Gosnold House, with its bristling array of telephone numbers and
+telegraph, post-office, railroad and steamboat addresses), dipped a
+pen, and waited with a mind preoccupied by visions of the night to
+come. Her first ball! Her first real function in Society!
+
+"My dear friend," Mrs. Gosnold enunciated deliberately in a
+colourless, placid voice. "(Colon, dash, paragraph) It was only late
+last night, and then by merest chance, I learned you had come to the
+island yesterday instead of sailing last week, in accordance with your
+announced intention (period). So I cannot decently begin by berating
+you (dash) as I should, had you been here twenty-four hours without
+personally 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 a
+forecast of autumn fashions, an iridescent bubble of a dream shattered
+by the query: "Where was I, please?"
+
+"'Letting me know,'" she quoted absently.
+
+"Oh, yes. (Paragraph.) I hope with all my heart your change of plans
+was not brought about by any untoward accident (semicolon); but
+Italy's loss is the island's gain (semicolon); and I am looking
+forward with the keenest pleasure to seeing you again (period,
+paragraph). May I hope that it will be not later than to-night (point
+of interrogation)? I have arranged an impromptu masquerade by
+moonlight on the terrace (period). It should be a pretty sight
+(period). From ten o'clock till any time you like (dash) masks until
+one (period). Do come and help make the evening a happy one for me
+(period)."
+
+Another contemplative pause. But this time Sally did not dream. She
+sat quite still in speculative wonder, troubled with a vague alarm as
+disturbing as the sound of distant thunder in the evening, of an
+August 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. You
+will be glad to see, no doubt, that your letter to Adele has borne
+fruit (period). Miss Manwaring does splendidly as an amanuensis
+(period). Your judgment was always trustworthy (period). And address
+the envelope, of course, to Mrs. Cornwallis English. She is stopping,
+I hear, with the Lorimers at Bleak House--the grey stone house on the
+hill 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 the
+woman 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 to
+thank 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 any
+letter to Mrs. Standish. That was a story manufactured out of whole
+cloth to account for me--get me this position here."
+
+"Oh, yes," Mrs. Gosnold assented coolly. "I felt quite sure of that in
+the beginning. You never could believe a word Adele said from the time
+she was able to talk. Even if the truth would have served as well and
+with less trouble, she was sure to disfigure it beyond identification.
+And Walter's just as bad. But you, my dear, will never make a good
+liar; the first words we spoke together I saw your eyes wince, and
+knew you were tormented by something on your conscience. Moreover, the
+last person Edna English would send anyone with a letter of
+recommendation to is my niece, who has not yet been proved guilty
+of one unselfish act. So I thought I'd test the story. Now you
+may tear up that note--Mrs. English is in Italy this very day, to the
+best 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 the
+cat was completely out of the bag, the fat as irretrievably in the
+fire; Sally was out of breath and in tears of penitence and despair;
+Mrs. Gosnold was out of her chair, thoughtfully pacing to and fro, and
+in full possession of all facts materially bearing upon the
+translation of S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions into S. Manwaring of
+the Golden Destiny.
+
+No vital detail had escaped her penetrating probe; she proved herself
+past mistress in the art of cross-examination, and found in Sally a
+willing witness.
+
+For the latter, however, it had seemed less giving of testimony than a
+hysteric confessional. She had wrung her conscience dry, deriving from
+the act a sort of awful joy mitigated by the one regret: that she had
+not more to confess, that the mystery of her favouring must remain a
+mystery which, with all the good-will in the world, no word of hers
+could elucidate.
+
+As for the secret history of last night's dark transactions, however,
+that was not altogether hers to disclose. The interests and affairs of
+others were involved, she dared not guess how disastrously; she was
+only sensitive to the feeling that something black and foul and
+hideous skulked behind that shut door. Heaven forfend that hers should
+be the hand to open it and let ruin loose upon this pleasant world of
+Gosnold House!
+
+It seemed incumbent upon her to explain that Mrs. Standish had brought
+to 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 Trego
+or the yacht, or the window of the signals.
+
+In the end, stopping tears and sobs as best she might, she waited
+listlessly her sentence of expulsion. Now nothing mattered; if her
+heart was lighter, her future was darker; and presently the nobody
+that she was would return into that drab nowhere whence some ill wind
+of chance had wafted her.
+
+"Don't be a fool!" Mrs. Gosnold counselled her abruptly with unwonted
+brusqueness. "Do you really think I'm capable of baiting a trap for
+you with fair words and flattery for the sheer, inhuman pleasure of
+seeing you suffer until I choose to set you adrift? See how you've
+upset me already; metaphor is never safe in a woman's hands, but
+I'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 what
+you've been able to tell me, I'd . . . Well, no matter; I don't know
+what I'd do. As it is . . . Look here!"
+
+She paused in front of Sally, dropped one hand kindly on the girl's
+shoulder, with the other lifted her chin, exploring her tear-wet eyes
+with a gaze at once charitable and discriminating.
+
+"I've taken a fancy to you, if you are a bit of an idiot. And I
+believe implicitly every word you've uttered. Perhaps I oughtn't to,
+and I probably wouldn't, if your account of yourself didn't chime so
+exactly with what I know about my dutiful niece and nephew. But, you
+see, I do know them, and very well--and that they're quite capable of
+all you say, and more to boot. Adele Standish in especial I know far
+too well to believe for an instant she'd burden herself with
+benevolent intentions toward another woman without expecting to reap
+some wildly inadequate reward. That's all that bothers me. I can't
+understand what they wanted with you. But I'm not going to let my
+mystification lose me the services of a promising amanuensis--not in
+these 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 and
+well-mannered, and you've got too much sense to try again to pull wool
+over my eyes, even if you're wicked enough to want to, which I don't
+believe. No; as far as you're concerned, your position here is far
+more firmly established now than an hour ago, when everything was
+against my liking you--in spite of the fact that I did--especially
+your loyalty to those hopeless ingrates!"
+
+She fumed in silence for a moment. "I could have forgiven almost
+anything--but this! The insolence of it! To dare picture me to you--or
+anybody--as a silly old fool of a woman without the wit to protect
+herself from being fleeced by a gang of adventurers. My friends!" she
+broke off with a snort of superindignation. "My guests here a set of
+rogues and vagabonds--and worse!"
+
+She flopped into her chair with a helpless "Oh dear!" and began to
+laugh.
+
+"It's too ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "If it ever got out, I'd almost
+be ashamed to show my face in public again. Promise you'll never
+breathe 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 by
+serving you faithfully--"
+
+"You might," the elder woman interposed in a quizzical turn, "spare
+me, if you can, a little affection, since it seems I've lost that of
+my sister's children, together with their respect."
+
+"I don't think you'll ever complain for want of that," Sally told her
+very seriously. "But can you afford to run the risk of the police
+coming here to find Sarah Manvers, who disappeared last week after
+breaking into a house--burglarising it--leaving her discarded clothing
+behind 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, they
+wouldn'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 remain
+Sara Manwaring for some time to come--for good, if I think best. Don't
+imagine I'm going to permit you to resume your right name and spoil
+everything. I hope I make myself clear."
+
+"Oh, yes, Mrs. Gosnold!"
+
+"And--attend to me--you're not to give Adele--or Walter, either, when
+he gets here, any reason to suspect you've confided in me. I wish
+everything to go on precisely as it has been going--so far as they
+can 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'm
+sure who and what are going to be blown sky-high, and I am quite
+prepared to stand by and enjoy the fireworks. Meantime, don't let
+anybody frighten you; no matter how serious matters may seem or be
+represented to you, rely implicitly on me. And whatever is said to you
+that seems of any consequence--or if you should see anything--find
+some way to report quickly to me. Now what did you say you did with
+that 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 nodded
+intently. "Then don't; leave it as it is, and some time to-day, if I
+can manage without being observed, I'll drop into your room and have a
+look at the box myself. But you are on no consideration whatever to
+touch it until I give you leave."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"If Adele and Walter want to know what you've done with it, tell them
+the truth--you've done nothing. Say you've not yet found a good chance
+to. 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 semimalicious
+cast, to judge by the smile that faintly shadowed the firm lines of
+her handsome face.
+
+"A surprise patty . . ." she observed obscurely.
+
+Of a sudden, with a sort of snap, she roused herself back to more
+immediate issues. "Oh, come! the morning almost gone already and
+nothing accomplished! Off with you! But before you go, do, for
+goodness' sake, attend to your eyes; if some one were to see you going
+through the halls the way you are--it might be ruinous. Bathe them
+with cold water in the bath-room there--and you'll find plenty of
+powder 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 too
+sensitive and emotional by half. If you go on this way, at the least
+excuse--great Heavens! what a moist married life you'll lead! Now let
+me look at you. That's much better. You'll do very well--if only
+you've wit enough not to worry--to trust me, whatever the emergency.
+Now, please, get about my errands. And when you come back, tell Thomas
+to 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; but
+she kept her busy with commissions delivered by word of mouth--so
+busy, perhaps considerately, that the girl found little time to waste
+in futile fretting, but was ever conscious, when now and again her
+thoughts did inevitably revert to the status of her personal affairs,
+of contentment crooning in her heart like the soft refrain of some
+sweet old song.
+
+Her social education had made a gigantic forward stride with her
+surprising discovery that confession is good for the soul, that
+honesty in all things is not only expedient but wholesome. If material
+advantage had accrued unto her through that act of desperate honesty,
+if she basked all this day long in the assurance of immunity from the
+consequences of her folly and imprudence, it was less with the
+arrogance of Fortune's favourite daughter than with the humility of
+one to whom life had measured out benefactions of which she was
+consciously undeserving. The assertion that the world owed her a
+living was forgotten, and if recalled, would have been revised to the
+sense that she owed the world the duty of honourable and conscientious
+living. If her temper was tolerably exalted, it was well chastened to
+boot.
+
+Thanks to the tardy advertisement of the fete, the avidity of a people
+ever seeking some new thing, and the fame of Abigail Gosnold as an
+entertainer of eccentric genius, that day could hardly be said
+to wane; rather, it waxed to its close in an atmosphere of electric
+excitement steadily cumulative. The colony droned like some huge
+dynamo with the rumour of secret preparation against the night. Other
+than servants scurrying to and fro on pressing but mysterious errands,
+few folk were visible in the afternoon; the drives and beaches; the
+lawns, terraces, courts, gardens, verandas and casinos were one and
+all deserted.
+
+At Gosnold House, below-stairs, in kitchens and servants' halls, and
+all about the grounds as well, a multitude of work-people swarmed like
+an invading army of ants. Astonishing feats of preparation were
+consummated as if by legerdemain. And though the routine of the
+household proceeded marvellously without apparent hitch or friction,
+luncheon and dinner degenerated into affairs of emptiest formality. At
+the latter, indeed, Mrs. Gosnold presided over an oddly balanced
+board; three-fourths of those present were men--fully half the
+feminine guests dining from trays in their rooms or else abstaining
+altogether in order that not one precious moment might be lost to the
+creation of their improvised disguises. And the talk at table was
+singularly disconnected, with an average of interest uncommonly low.
+People were obviously saving themselves up. There was no lingering
+over tobacco; the last course served, the guests dispersed in
+all haste compatible with decency.
+
+It was at this meal that Sally got her first glimpse of Savage since
+his arrival in the course of the afternoon. She had been far too busy
+to keep watch and unable to invent any plausible excuse for inquiring
+after him, but the thought of his return had never been far out of
+mind. However busy, she had been unable to dismiss entirely the
+consideration that Savage was bringing the first authentic news of
+whatever activities the police might have inaugurated in connection
+with the burglary and whatever their progress in pursuit of the clue
+furnished by the garments discarded in the bath-room. And all the
+reassurances of Mrs. Gosnold were impotent to counteract apprehensions
+fostered by such reflections.
+
+But there was the length and the width of the table between them. She
+had to be content with all that Savage found chance to accord her--a
+bow, a smile, and a glance down his nose significant of unspeakable
+intelligence.
+
+She thought he looked a bit pale and worried and betrayed more
+nervousness than was natural in the man as she had come to know him.
+
+Whether or not he had been accompanied by the threatened insurance
+adjuster (or detective!) she was unable to surmise; notwithstanding
+several strange faces in the number at table, she was inclined to
+believe that a person of such character would have been lodged
+somewhere in the village which served as the island's main port of
+entry, rather than brought to Gosnold House--already crowded with
+guests.
+
+As soon as the company rose Savage manoeuvred to the side of the girl,
+detaining her long enough to convey a surreptitious message under
+cover 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 sufficient
+command of herself not to betray her emotion or even to seem anxious
+to 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 was
+openly and profoundly perplexed. "I've heaps of things yet to do for
+Mrs. 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 will
+you be wearing?"
+
+"I don't know. Mrs. Gosnold promised to find something and send it to
+my room. I presume she must have forgotten--but perhaps it's
+there now."
+
+"Well, keep an eye bright for me, then. I'll be Harlequin--an old
+costume 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 dead
+one."
+
+She laughed mechanically, murmured "I must fly!" and forthwith dashed
+up the great staircase and to her room.
+
+Her costume had not yet been delivered; she had still to wait half an
+hour by the clock; but there was plenty of detail wherewith to occupy
+her time. On the other hand, the routine of one's toilet is a famous
+incentive to thoughtfulness, and as she went automatically through the
+motions of beautifying herself and dressing her hair, Sally's mind
+took advantage of this, its first real freedom of the day, and focused
+sharply on her own concerns.
+
+It reminded her, among other things, of the fact that she had not seen
+Lyttleton since an adventitious glimpse of him going in to breakfast
+just 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 she
+wondered dumbly at herself, whom she found able to imagine without
+flinching an encounter with him of the mildly flirtatious description
+licensed by the masquerade. Would he know instinctively who she
+was and avoid her? Or have the impudence to renew his advances? Or
+would he fail to fathom her identity and so lay himself open to her
+castigation?
+
+She did not for an instant forget that she was endued, not only by
+personal right as an injured woman herself at fault, but also by the
+authority of Mrs. Gosnold, with letters of marque and reprisal.
+
+That she would penetrate at sight his disguise, whatever its
+character, she hadn't the faintest doubt.
+
+But, then, woman's faith in her vaunted if vaguely comprehended
+faculty 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 this
+phase her thoughts wore a complexion of far less self-assurance,
+notwithstanding the moral support of her employer. What could have
+happened in New York that he must seek an early meeting to discuss it
+with her? What had been the outcome of that terribly incriminating
+clue, her name on the garments composing that sloughed chrysalis of
+yesterday? Was it possible that her comrades of the studio (Heavens!
+how historically remote and almost unreal seemed that well-hated
+chapter of existence) had become anxious enough to notify the police
+of her long absence? In such cases, she believed, something called a
+general alarm was issued--a description of the absentee was read
+to every member of the metropolitan police force, that it might be on
+the alert to apprehend or succour the lost, strayed or stolen. Could
+that possibly have been done in the case of missing Sally Manvers?
+And, if so, could the police detectives possibly have overlooked the
+fact that the name of the wanting woman was identical with the name of
+the 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 never
+dare return and share these happier fortunes with those two unhappy
+partners of her days of suffering and privation.
+
+She wasn't heartless; she had thought frequently of them before, but
+always with the notion that she would some day, and by happy chance
+some day not distant, reveal her transfigured self to them and, out of
+the plenitude of her blessings, lend them a little, and much more than
+a little, aid and comfort. Something of that sort, indeed, was the
+least she could do; it was but justice; it was simply repayment of
+acknowledged indebtedness. And now, it seemed, it might never be!
+
+From this she passed into new wonder and bewilderment at the duplicity
+of Savage and his sister, and the mystery of their motives and the
+still deeper mystery of their actions, and the inscrutable
+mystery of the boat that had landed on the beach of Gosnold House at
+three 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 hands
+of 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 of
+her assigned disguise. She had had visions of something very splendid,
+something almost barbaric in its richness--had nursed a day-dream of
+herself flaunting radiantly through the chiaroscuro of the moonlight
+fete like some great jewelled butterfly.
+
+After that vision the modest garb of a Quaker maid seemed something of
+a come-down, even though the costumer's conception of a Quakeress had
+been considerably influenced by musical comedy standards.
+
+But her disappointment was fugitive. After all, the dress was of
+exquisite quality and finish, and it became her wondrous well.
+She took from the room the memory of a very fetching figure in a gown
+of dove-grey crepe-de-chine, the bosom crossed by glistening bands of
+white, the skirt relieved by a little apron of lace and linen, white
+bands at wrist and throat, a close-fitting cap of lace covering her
+hair, her feet and ankles disclosed discreetly in stockings of
+dove-grey silk and suede slippers of the same neutral shade set off by
+silver buckles--the whole rendered the more tempting by an almost
+jaunty cloak of grey satin lined with white.
+
+With the addition of the mask (which she wore to pass through the
+corridor in memory of Mrs. Gosnold's injunction) the effect was quite
+positively fascinating.
+
+And that mask proved to be far from superfluous, for when she followed
+her knock into the boudoir of her mistress she was thunderstruck to
+find nearly two dozen people, men and women, gathered together there,
+sitting and standing about in a silence which seemed curiously
+constrained, taken in connection with their festival attire. For they
+were all in costume and, with the single exception of Mrs. Gosnold,
+all masked.
+
+This last was very brilliant in the billowy silken skirts, puffed
+sleeves, tight bodice, and wide ruff of Queen Elizabeth, and carried
+off well the character of that hot-tempered majesty, making no effort
+to disguise the fact that she was deeply wounded and profoundly
+agitated.
+
+She sat regally enthroned upon a spindle-shank chair that matched her
+escritoire, and betrayed her impatient humour by the quick tapping of
+one exquisitely shod foot. And the others seemed to wait upon her
+pleasure 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 manner
+thus far in Sally's experience wholly foreign to the nature of the
+speaker: "Come in, please, shut the door, and find some place to sit
+down. Retain your mask. There are two guests wanting, and we must wait
+for them."
+
+There were no chairs vacant, and a majority of the men were already
+standing, but another (by whose unquestionably authentic cowboy
+costume Sally was sure she recognised Trego) rose and silently
+surrendered 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 appeared
+to care to know his neighbour; there was no whispering, no murmuring,
+even the indispensable fidgeting was accomplished in an apprehensive
+and apologetic manner. A few men breathed audibly, a few fans
+stirred imperceptibly an atmosphere supercharged with radiations from
+so many human bodies added to the natural heat of a summer's evening;
+there were no other sounds or movements of any consequence. Sally
+became uncomfortably susceptible to the undercurrent of high nervous
+tension, conscious of a slight dew on her hands and forehead, and
+surprisingly 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 her
+immediate neighbourhood. Their eyes gleamed uncannily through the
+slits in the black silk, and when she intercepted a direct glance, it
+was hastily lowered or averted, as if there were something indecorous
+in acknowledging her bewildered appeal.
+
+Again, perhaps, they were as much puzzled by her incognito as she was
+by theirs.
+
+Those small shapes of black, silk-covered cardboard proved singularly
+effective, even when they concealed no more than the nose and the
+cheeks immediately beneath the eyes. She found it surprisingly
+difficult to fix an identification, even when satisfied she could not
+be in error; but she was measurably sure of Mrs. Artemas beneath
+Diana's Grecian draperies, of Trego in his Western guise, of Mercedes
+Pride in the conventional make-up of a witch. The rest at once
+provoked and eluded conjecture; she fancied she knew Lyttleton in the
+doublet and hose of Sir Francis Drake, but could not feel certain;
+divested of his peculiarly well-tailored personality, he was
+astonishingly like half a dozen other men among the guests.
+
+Presently Mrs. Gosnold's maid, Marie, appeared in the doorway to the
+bedroom, holding in her hand a number of envelopes, and at a nod from
+her mistress began to thread the gathering, presenting one envelope to
+each guest, together with a small pencil such as is commonly attached
+to dance-programs.
+
+The incident provided a grateful interruption to a situation that was
+rapidly assuming in Sally's esteem the grotesqueness of a dream.
+Remembering that this was Gosnold House, the focal point of America's
+most self-sufficient summer colony, and that all these subdued and
+inarticulate masqueraders were personages daily exploited by the press
+as the brightest stars in the social firmament, the incongruity of
+this dumb gathering seemed as glaring, as bizarre as anything her
+fancy could conceive.
+
+And when her envelope was handed her and she had lifted the flap and
+withdrawn an oblong correspondence-card bearing the monogram A-G and
+nothing else, the final effect of meaningless mystery seemed to
+have been consummated.
+
+But this, as it happened, was coincident with the arrival of the last
+two guests--one of whom was a lithe and shapely Harlequin in
+party-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 be
+seated, then directed her maid to go out into the hall, close the
+door, and stand guard to prevent eavesdropping. When the door was
+closed she plunged directly into a prepared address.
+
+"I owe every one an apology," she began with a fugitive, placating
+smile, "for all this inconvenience and nonsense--as it must seem. But
+I'm sure you will bear with me when you know the circumstances, which
+are 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 who
+slept here last night, and one or two more. And your masks are a sure
+screen for any betrayal of emotion when I tell you why I have asked
+you to oblige me by meeting here. So please retain them whatever
+happens."
+
+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 were
+entered some time last night, while I was asleep, and all my personal
+jewelry was stolen. Please no one interrupt. I will answer all the
+natural questions before I finish.
+
+"The robbery was not difficult to accomplish."
+
+"The Island is well-policed, there has not been a burglary in its
+history, and I am a careless old woman. When I take my things off at
+night I leave them on my dressing-table. Marie, my maid, puts them
+away in the morning. I have three large jewel-cases, none of which is
+ever locked except when I travel. I have never had a safe. The
+jewel-cases are stored away in unlocked dresser-drawers. My bedroom
+and boudoir doors are never locked. And I am a sound sleeper. There
+is--and was--nothing to prevent the thief from entering after I had
+turned out my light and, employing ordinary discretion, helping him or
+her self. Which is precisely what happened last night. Every piece of
+jewelry was taken from my dressing-table, and the three jewel-cases
+from their drawers."
+
+"I discovered my loss promptly after waking up this morning. I said
+nothing, but after setting in motion the machinery for
+to-night's amusement, which I have long had in mind, devoted the day
+to a quiet investigation, as a result of which I am convinced that the
+house servants had no part in the robbery. In short, I am persuaded
+that the thief is now in this room. I do not, however, wish to know
+his or her identity. And I am especially anxious to avoid the scandal
+which must follow if this affair leaks out."
+
+"Finally, I feel so sure you all share my horror of publicity and my
+aversion to knowing positively who committed this crime that I ask you
+all silently to pledge yourselves to secrecy--and then to humour my
+plan for regaining my jewels and covering up the affair completely. I
+have thought it might be accomplished this way:"
+
+"Marie has given you each a card, an envelope, and a pencil. The cards
+and envelopes have no distinguishing marks. The pencils are all alike.
+The authorship of anything you may care to communicate cannot possibly
+be 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 of
+you remain there at least five minutes before coming out. Then take
+the cards in the envelopes, sealed, down-stairs and deposit them in
+the mail-box. It will not be unlocked until one o'clock. By that time
+I shall expect the thief to have deposited my jewelry in some
+hiding-place about the house or grounds--a dozen will suggest
+themselves on a moment's thought--the spot to be indicated on the
+card. By this method ample time is granted in which to make
+restitution with complete immunity from recognition, the secret will
+be kept, the scandal hushed up, and, best of all, I shall be able to
+continue considering each and every one of you my very dear friend."
+
+"But"--and her handsome old face darkened with the shadow of the
+determination that rang in her tone--"if this scheme should fail, and
+the thief refuse to make restitution, then, though it break my heart,
+I shall feel without alternative other than to take certain
+steps--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 have
+imposed in this way upon your patience, but it seemed, I think you'll
+grant me, warranted and necessary. I thank you, and hope you'll
+forgive me. And now will you please return to your rooms, without
+asking me any questions, and do as I have begged? And I sincerely hope
+that this wretched business may not interfere with your enjoyment
+to-night. For my part, I am so confident of the success of this scheme
+that I mean to consider that I have not been robbed--that everything
+is as it has always been, and as it will be after the envelopes
+are opened at one o'clock."
+
+She ceased; there was the stir of a general rising and movement toward
+the door, amid a hum of excited murmurings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MARPLOT
+
+Once sheltered by the privacy of her bedchamber and seated before the
+little white-enamel desk with its chintz-covered fittings that suited
+so well the simple, cheerful scheme of decoration, the girl lingered
+long, an idle pencil caught between fingers infirm of purpose. Her
+gaze was fixed as if hypnotised to the blank white face of the bit of
+cardboard that lay before her on the blotting-pad, her thoughts far
+astray in a dark jungle of horror, doubts, suspicions, fears.
+
+Immediately after shutting herself in she had gone straight to this
+desk, possessed by the notion that there was a message requiring to be
+written upon the card, one self-exculpatory sentence which had framed
+itself in her mind as she sped down the corridor from that remarkable
+meeting in Mrs. Gosnold's rooms.
+
+"I have not told you everything--but I am innocent," thus ran the
+words which she felt were demanded of her and a legitimate privilege,
+her duty to herself in sheer self-preservation. And as they
+wrote themselves down before her mental vision she saw two heavy
+strokes of the pen underlining "everything," and her own true name,
+Sarah Manvers, following in the place of the signature--no more "Sara
+Manwaring," Mrs. Gosnold's explicit commands to the contrary
+notwithstanding.
+
+But that had been an impulse, only natural in the first shock of
+horror inevitably attending the disclosure of the robbery, to clear
+herself; or, rather, to reaffirm her innocence.
+
+For with second thought had come the consideration: Was she not
+already cleared, was her innocence not already established?
+
+She was prepared to believe that Mrs. Gosnold knew everything. That
+extraordinary woman! What had she not known, indeed? Mark how
+cunningly she had drawn from Sally the admission that she had been up
+and about the house and grounds long after she had gone to her
+bedchamber for the night--at the very time, most probably, when the
+robbery was being done! And that had been by way of preface to the
+pledge she had made Sally of her protection before startling
+confession from the girl--a pledge not only given in advance, but by
+implication at least renewed when the truth was out.
+
+If she had believed Sally guilty, or party to the crime, or even
+in possession of guilty knowledge of it, would she have made that
+generous promise?
+
+She was kind of heart, was Mrs. Gosnold, but she was nobody's fool; if
+she had not been well satisfied in her own mind as to the thief she
+would never have so committed herself to Sally, for she was no one to
+give her word lightly or, as she herself had said, to bait a trap with
+fair words and flattery.
+
+In vain Sally searched her memory for anything to warrant an
+assumption that her mistress had been in any way ignorant of that
+black business of the small hours. She had neither denied such
+knowledge nor asserted it, but had simply permitted Sally to leave out
+of her account all reference to the overnight adventure.
+
+And all that assorted consistently with her statement that she did not
+wish to learn the thief's identity, as well as with her invention of a
+means 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 the
+crime--or, at all events, shared the damning suspicions engendered in
+Sally's mind by circumstantial evidence.
+
+Lyttleton, of course: Sally entertained but the slenderest doubts of
+his black guilt.
+
+If innocent, what had he been carrying hidden in the hollow of his
+arm? What had he left down there on the beach? Why had he left
+it there? Why such anxiety to escape observation as to make the man
+alert to notice Sally's head peering over the parapet of the landing
+at the head of the cliff? And if he had been employed in no way to be
+ashamed of, and had no consequences to fear, why that roundabout way
+up the cliff again and that ambush of his watcher?
+
+And why those signals between window and yacht, if not to apprise the
+latter that something had been consummated, that the coast was clear
+for its tender to come in and take away the plunder?
+
+It would seem, then, that Mr. Lyttleton must have had a confederate in
+the house, and for that role Mrs. Standish was plainly designated. An
+understanding of some close sort between her and Lyttleton had been
+quite evident from the very first day. And whose bedchamber window had
+shown the signals, if not hers? Not the pretty young widow's--not in
+any likelihood Mrs. Artemas'. To believe the latter intimate with the
+affair was to assume an understanding between her and Lyttleton--or
+else Trego.
+
+Trego!
+
+Sally was conscious of a slight mental start, a flurry of thoughts and
+sensations, 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 suspicion
+that what he might desire he would boldly go after and possess himself
+of. With a nature better adapted to the planning and execution of
+adventures demanding courage, daring and indifference to ethical
+considerations, Trego was capable of anything. Lyttleton was of
+flimsier stuff, or instinct were untrustworthy.
+
+But after a little the girl sighed and shook her head. It was less
+plausible, 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 those
+were far-fetched possibilities. Unless, indeed, professed distrust and
+dislike of Mrs. Artemas had been altogether ingenious, a mask
+manufactured in anticipation of just this development.
+
+No, it wasn't likely of Trego. She could not overlook the impression
+he conveyed of rugged honesty and straightforwardness. However strong
+the aversion he inspired, Sally could ignore neither that impression
+nor yet its correlative, that if he was not an over-righteous scorner
+of lies, he was the sort that would suffer much rather than seek to
+profit by a lie.
+
+She perceived, with a little qualm of contrition, that she had
+been eager to condemn the man out of sheer unreasonable prejudice, all
+too ready to do him injustice in her thoughts. Unpleasant though she
+found his personality, harshly though his crudities grated upon her
+sensibilities, she owed him gratitude for an intimate service in an
+emergency when she had been only too glad of his personal
+intervention; and it were rank ingratitude to wish him ill, just as it
+was 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 shook
+her roughly, if justly. For a little time she cringed in shame of
+herself and was torn by desire in some way to make amends to this
+animal of a Trego, whom she so despised because he refused to play up
+to the snob in her and ape the manners of his putative betters even as
+she 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 less
+flattering than she found pleasant.
+
+Certainly its aftermath in the way of private communion served well to
+sober and humble Sally in her own esteem. Outside the immediate field
+of her reverie she was now conscious of the words "sycophant" and
+"parasite" buzzing like mosquitoes about the head of some frantic
+wooer of sleep, elusive, pitiless, exasperating, making it just
+so much more difficult to concentrate upon this importunate problem of
+her duty.
+
+If she was not to protest her own innocence, what ought she to say
+upon that card?
+
+Was it consistent with loyalty to Mrs. Gosnold to keep silence about
+matters that might clear up the mystery and repair the wrong-doing?
+
+But how could she attack another? How bring herself to point the
+finger of accusation at Lyttleton?
+
+On the terrace outside her window a stringed orchestra tuned and
+hummed softly in the perfumed night. Rumour of gay voices and light
+laughter came to her in ever greater volume. Before her distracted
+gaze swam a view of the formal garden, a-glimmer like a corner of
+fairy-land with the hundreds of tiny lamps half concealed amid the
+foliage of its shrubs and hedges.
+
+She knew that she must rouse herself and be seen below; not only must
+her message take its place with its twenty-odd fellows in the
+mail-box, but nothing could seem so incriminating as prolonged and
+deliberate absence from the fete.
+
+Yet she had little desire now for what two hours since had seemed a
+prospect of bewitching promise. The music rose and fell in magic
+measure without its erstwhile power to stir her pulses. There was
+not one in all that company below for whom she cared or who
+cared for her, none but whose interest in her presence or absence was
+as slight as hers; and her mood shrank from the thought of such casual
+and conventional gallantries as the affair would inevitably bring
+forth. She was in no humour tonight to dance and banter and coquette
+with an empty and desolate heart.
+
+Thus it was made clear to her that she had never been, and never would
+be, in such humour; that in just this circumstance resided all her
+insuperable dissociation from these people of light-hearted lives;
+that this was why she was and forever must remain, however long and
+intimate her life among them, an outsider; because what she needed and
+demanded, the blind and inarticulate impulse which had made her aspire
+to their society, was not the need of a wide social life, but the need
+of a narrow and constricting love.
+
+And all the love that she had thus far found in this earthly paradise
+had proved a delusion, a mockery and a snare.
+
+Presently she stirred with reluctance, sighed, resigned herself to the
+prospect of a night of hollow, grinning merriment, and turned back to
+contemplation of that importunate card. And while still she hesitated,
+pencil poised, with neither knock nor any sort of announcement
+whatsoever the door flew open, and through it, like a fury in a
+fairy's dress, flew Mrs. Standish clothed as Columbine.
+
+She shut the door sharply, put her back to it, and keeping her gaze
+fixed on the amazed girl, turned the key.
+
+Her passion was as evident as it was senseless. Bare of the mask that
+swung from silken strings caught in her fingers, her face shone bright
+with the incandescence of seething agitation. Her eyes were hard, her
+mouth 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 the
+older woman a curt, imperative gesture.
+
+"What have you written there?" she demanded brusquely.
+
+Before answering Sally carried the envelope to her lips, moistened its
+flap, and sealed it. Thus she gained time to collect herself and
+compose her attitude, which turned out unexpectedly to be something
+cold 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 was
+inexplicably out and waited till I returned. I can't see why you
+should care if that became known."
+
+"Have you written anything about that?" Mrs. Standish demanded
+insistently.
+
+"And even if I had, and you were merely afraid of being embarrassed, I
+couldn't very well drag you in without incriminating myself, now could
+I?"
+
+"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 to
+infuse into her tone. "I think we covered that question rather
+completely last night--or rather this morning. I imagined it was
+settled. In fact, it was. I don't care to reopen it; but I will say
+this--or repeat it, if you prefer: I'm not going to permit you to
+interfere 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: "be
+reasonable. 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 cunningly
+calculated to madden.
+
+"Very well. If you will have it. Do you recall a certain letter of
+introduction?"
+
+"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 to
+me last Wednesday, looking for work, with what purported to be a
+letter of recommendation from Mrs. English."
+
+"Please go on."
+
+"Well," Mrs. Standish announced triumphantly, "I kept that letter, of
+course, and now I've had occasion to look closely, I find it's a
+forgery."
+
+"Please!" Sally faltered.
+
+"I tell you, I have safe in my possession a letter recommending you to
+me and signed with the forged signature of Mrs. Cornwallis English. If
+necessary to protect myself, I shall not scruple to exhibit that
+letter."
+
+"Oh!" With a gasp of incredulity Sally sat down and stared at this
+impudent intrigante.
+
+"Now will you tell me what you've written? No. I won't trust you to
+tell me. Give me that envelope. I'll see for myself."
+
+"It isn't possible," Sally said, "that you would do anything so cruel
+and 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 to
+interfere. . . ."
+
+She permitted Sally to think it over, meantime coming closer, holding
+out 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't
+hesitate to show the forgery you brought me."
+
+"I guessed all along," Sally told her, "that you were not what you
+made yourself out to be, neither a good woman nor a kind one. But I
+never 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 last
+night?"
+
+"To protect yourself, of course. I don't believe you mean to
+confess--"
+
+"Confess!"
+
+"Take advantage of this opportunity to restore the jewels--and get off
+without punishment. Probably you can't. Probably the man you met
+outside and gave them to is by now so far away that you couldn't, even
+if you wanted to."
+
+"Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. I don't want to make any
+mistake."
+
+"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 a
+man 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 complete
+ignorance of the existence of any such person.
+
+"Mr. Lyttleton," Sally repeated. "You know very well it was he to whom
+I 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 the
+house, for whatever reason, last night after going to bed--to save
+you?"
+
+"No," Sally conceded; "I don't expect anything from either you or any
+of 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 to
+you. He wouldn't be likely to mention that to you. In fact, I can see
+from 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 not
+guess at it; but I'm not a child to be scared by a bogy. Show your
+forged letter to Mrs. Gosnold, if you like--or come with me and we'll
+both 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 what
+you mean," she faltered.
+
+"I mean that this scene has gone on long enough. I'm sick and tired of
+it--and it isn't getting you anything, either. Good _night_!"
+
+With this Sally marched to the door, turned the knob, and found it
+locked and the key missing.
+
+"The key, please, Mrs. Standish."
+
+"Not till you tell me--" the other began with a flash of reviving
+spirit.
+
+Sally advanced a finger toward the push-button. "Must I call one of
+the 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 done
+with 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 of
+battle in her eyes.
+
+A hesitant, pleading call followed her, but she wouldn't hear it.
+Pursuit and continuation of the scene, with or without another
+specious semblance of apology and reconciliation such as had
+terminated their previous passage-at-arms, was out of the question;
+the corridor was lively with young women in gayest plumage, fluttering
+to and from the dressing-rooms, and Sally was among them even before
+she remembered to reassume her mask.
+
+At the head of the main staircase she paused, searching narrowly the
+shifting groupings of the animated scene disclosed by the wide
+reception-hall. She was looking for Queen Elizabeth's imperious ruff,
+anxious to find and keep in the shadow of that great lady's sovereign
+presence; and she was also looking for the leather-banded sombrero of
+the cowboy and the skull-cap of Harlequin, with a concern keen to
+avoid those gentlemen.
+
+Considerably to her surprise, still more to her disappointment, not
+even the first of these was in evidence (as Sally had made sure Mrs.
+Gosnold would be) waiting to welcome her guests just within the
+doorway to the porte-cochere.
+
+None the less, the lady must be found, and that without delay; the
+envelope, with its blank enclosure half crushed in Sally's hand, was
+an ever-present reminder of her duty first to herself, secondly to her
+employer. If she had written nothing, and but for Mrs. Standish would
+have kept her counsel till the last minute, the latter's threat of
+denunciation had lent the temper of the girl another complexion
+altogether; as Sally saw it, she no longer had any choice other than
+to find Mrs. Gosnold as quickly as possible and make complete the
+revelation of last night's doings. And her mind was fixed to this,
+with a cast of angry pertinacity that would prove far from easy to
+oppose or even to modify; whether or not the hostess wished it, she
+must suffer herself to be informed immediately and completely.
+
+Threading a swift way in and out among the masks clustered upon the
+broad staircase in groups of twos and threes, laughing, chattering and
+watching the restless play of life and colour in the hall, she gained
+the floor and then the letter-box, near the door where she had thought
+to find her employer.
+
+A distrustful scrutiny of the near-by masks failed to single out one
+of those she had marked and memorised in the boudoir, and without
+detecting any overt interest in her actions, she slipped her blameless
+message 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 as
+its coolth and spaciousness. Beyond the rail the purple-and-silver
+night pressed close and beckoned; its breath was sweet, its pulses
+throbbed with the rhythmic passion of violins that sobbed and sang in
+hiding somewhere in the shadows. Up and down that broad, smooth
+flooring gay couples swayed, eye to eye and breast to breast:
+anachronisms reconciled by the witchery of the dance. And when Sally
+darted across and down the steps she found the lawns, the terrace, and
+the formal garden, too, peopled with paired shadows, murmurous with
+soft voices and low-pitched laughter.
+
+And she who quartered so swiftly and so diligently that maze of lights
+and shadows found nowhere the one she wanted, but everywhere the
+confirmation of her secret thought--that there was no place here for
+her, no room, no welcome. On every hand love lurked, lingered,
+languished, but not for her. Whichever way she turned she saw some
+lover searching for his mistress, but not for her. They crossed her
+path and paused and stared, sometimes they spoke and looked deep into
+her 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 prove
+her ambitious of place beyond her worth; to persuade her that she was
+by birth, and must resign herself to remain always, Nobody.
+
+Forlornly haunted, she circled back to the house, and on impulse
+sought 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 still
+arriving and departing, to return at a designated hour, but here, at
+what might be termed the back of Gosnold House--if that mansion could
+be said to have either back or front--here on the landward side was
+little light or noise or movement. And after an undecided moment on
+the steps beneath the porte-cochere the Quakeress stepped down and out
+into the blackness of the shadow cast by the western wing, a
+deep shadow, dense and wide from the pale wall of the house to the
+edge 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 a
+little from the agitation which had been waxing ever more high and
+strong in her with each successive crisis of the night. Here the
+breeze was warm and bland, the music and the laughter a remote rumour,
+stars glimmered in a dome of lapis lazuli; peace was to be distilled
+of such things by the contemplative mind, peace and a sweet, sad sense
+of the beauty and pain of life. No place more fit than this could one
+wish wherein to shelter and to nurse bruised illusions.
+
+Insensibly she drew near the corner of the building, in abstraction so
+deep and still that she was almost upon them when she appreciated the
+fact that people were talking just beyond that high, white shoulder of
+stone, and was struck by the personal significance of a phrase that
+still echoed in ears which it had at first found heedless: "... a
+Quaker costume, grey and white, with a cloak . . ."
+
+It never occurred to the girl to stop and eavesdrop; but between that
+instant of reawakened consciousness and the moment when she came
+around 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 confronted
+Harlequin, 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 round
+the 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 your
+temper, Adele. You've less tact than any woman that ever breathed, I
+verily believe. Cut along now; I'll square matters for you with Miss
+Manwaring--if it's possible."
+
+With a stifled exclamation Columbine caught her cloak round her and
+followed Drake.
+
+The accent of the comic was not lost upon the girl. She could not but
+laugh 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-turned
+calves with Harlequin's lath-sword. "I swear," he complained, "I
+do believe Adele is crazier than most women most of the time. She's
+just been telling me what a fool she made of herself with you. I'm
+awfully 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 opportunity
+to explain things to you, but until Adele told me your costume just
+now--"
+
+"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 grinned
+gracelessly. "No, not what you think--not philandering--but in
+connection with this same business. I've got to butter thick with
+diplomacy an awful lot of mistaken apprehensions before I can set Don
+and Adele right, after that confounded foolishness of theirs last
+night--and this rotten robbery coming on top of it, to make things
+look black! It's a frightful, awful mixup, really, but as innocent as
+daylight if you only understand it. Look here, won't you give me a
+show 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 be
+cleared up and set straight before one. Do be patient with me until a
+quarter 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--our
+account'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 to
+one."
+
+"Well. Where?"
+
+He appeared to take thought. "It's got to be somewhere off the beaten
+track. And you're not afraid of the dark. Would you mind coming as far
+as 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!" She
+forestalled a protest of injured innocence. "I'm not in the least
+afraid to find out. Yes; I'll be there at a quarter to one."
+
+"You're a brick!" Savage declared fervently. "You won't regret being
+so 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 air
+gaily with his wooden sword, bowed low and skipped round the corner,
+leaving Sally even more puzzled than before but somehow
+placated--comforted by a sense of her own consequence conjured up by
+the 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 had
+surprised, wondering at Savage's insistence on a spot so remote and
+inconvenient for their appointment, and why it must needs be kept in
+so underhand a fashion, and whether she had been wise to consent to it
+and would be wise to keep it. She was at a loss how to fill in the
+time until the hour nominated, shrinking alike from the lights and
+gaiety of the hall, the supper-room and the veranda, and the romantic,
+love-sick peace of moonlit lawns and gardens. Altogether she was in a
+most complicated, distracted, uncertain and unhappy frame of mind.
+
+Then a latch clicked softly, the hinges of a shutter whined, and the
+startled young woman found herself staring up into the face of Mrs.
+Gosnold--a pallid oval against the dark background of an
+unlighted window not two feet above Sally's head.
+
+She gasped, but respected the admonition of a finger pressed lightly
+upon the lady's smiling lips.
+
+"S-s-s-sh!" said Mrs. Gosnold mysteriously, with cautious glances
+right and left.
+
+"There's no one here," Sally assured her in tones appropriately
+guarded. "You've been listening--" Mrs. Gosnold nodded with a
+mischievous twinkle: "I have that!"
+
+"You heard--?"
+
+"Something--not much--not enough. If you had only been a few minutes
+later. . ."
+
+"I'm sorry, but I've been looking for you everywhere. Please, may I
+come 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 already
+far more than I care to know!"
+
+"But this--"
+
+"Not now, I say. I've been too frequently and too long away from my
+guests 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 smile
+for the unconscious irony of that parting injunction, moved slowly on
+toward the front of the house.
+
+But it was true that she felt a little less disconsolate now than she
+had two minutes ago; after all, it seemed, she wasn't altogether
+friendless and forsaken; and as for those doubts and questions which
+so perplexed her, they would all be resolved and answered once she had
+opportunity to lay them, together with the story of last night, before
+the judgment of her benefactress. . . .
+
+Still, if she reckoned confidently upon her hostess, she reckoned not
+wisely without her host, whose mask to-night was that of a sardonic
+destiny. And when a tentative venture into the throngs on the veranda
+had been discouraged by the spirited advances of a forward young
+Cavalier who chose to consider his honour piqued, first by her demure
+Quaker garb, then by her unresponsiveness, Sally was glad enough to
+fall back upon the comparative quiet and solitude of the moon-drenched
+gardens. Whereupon her destiny grinned a heartless grin and arranged
+to throw her to the lions that, all unsuspected, raged in the maiden
+bosom of Mercedes Pride.
+
+The tireless ingenuity with which that rampant spinster devised ways
+and means of rendering herself a peripatetic pest had long since won
+the ungrudged admiration of Sally, who elected to be amused more than
+annoyed by the impertinences, the pretentiousness, the fawning
+adulation and the corrosive jealousy of Mrs. Gosnold's licensed
+pick-thank. And when she had first divined the woman beneath the
+disguise of the witch Sally had wondered what new method of making a
+sprightly nuisance of herself Miss Pride had invented to go with her
+impersonation.
+
+It proved, naturally enough, remembering the limitations of a New
+England maiden's imagination, to be compulsory fortune-telling with
+the 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 hedge
+with a Navajo blanket for a canopy and for properties two wooden
+stools, a small folding table, a papier-mache skull, a jointed wooden
+snake, an artificial pumpkin-head with a candle in it, and a black cat
+tethered by a string to a stake in the ground and wishing he had never
+been born.
+
+Within this noisome lair the sorceress squatted and practised her
+unholy arts upon all comers without mercy or distinction as to race,
+caste, sex, age, colour, or previous condition of servitude. And when
+trade slackened (as inevitably it did when "the young people"
+for whose "amusement" this mummery ostensibly was staged asserted
+their 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 her
+table 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 appearances
+kept up the semblance of mystification.
+
+"Sit you there, my pretty," she grabbed vivaciously, two hands on
+Sally's shoulders urging her to rest on one of the stools. "Don't be
+afraid of my simple magic; the black art has nothing to do with the
+lore of the wise old woman. Just show me your rosy palm, and I will
+tell you your fortune. No, you needn't cross my palm with silver; I
+will ply my mystic trade and tell your future all for the sake of your
+pretty eyes."
+
+She peered, blinking with make-believe myopia, into the hollow of
+Sally's hand.
+
+"Ah, yes, yes!" she grunted, "you have an amiable and affectionate
+disposition; you love pretty things to wear and every sort of
+pleasure. There is your gravest fault and greatest danger,
+pretty: love of clothes and pleasure and--forgive the wise old woman's
+plain speaking--false ambitions. Beware of the sin of vain ambition;
+only wrong and unhappiness can come of that. No, no; don't draw your
+hand away. I have not finished. Let me look closer. There is much
+written here that you should know and none but my wise old eyes can
+read, pretty."
+
+Effrontery battened on indulgence:
+
+"The past has been unfortunate. The present is bright with misleading
+glamour--beware of the vanities of the flesh! The future--I see a
+shadow. It is dark. It is difficult to read. I see a journey before
+you--a long journey; you will cross water and travel by the
+steam-cars. And there is a lover waiting for you at the journey's
+end--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; but
+she was as little capable of reading Sally's character as her palm.
+
+"I see danger in your path," she resumed in accents of awe; "the
+shadow of something evil--and a window barred with iron. I cannot say
+what 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 all
+haste 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 had
+adopted to suit her impersonation; "I am only the wise old woman who
+tells 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 stammered
+uncertainly.
+
+"You know very well what you have said," Sally told her in a low voice
+vibrant with indignation. "You know very well you have deliberately
+insulted me."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"You know who I am and what your insinuation means, after what has
+happened here to-night. Miss Pride! Do you dare accuse me--?"
+
+"Oh, no-please!" Mercedes begged, aghast, quaking in realisation of
+the enormity of her mistake. "I didn't think--I didn't know you--I
+didn't mean--"
+
+"That," Sally cut in tensely, "is a deliberate falsehood. You
+inveigled me into this for the sole purpose of insulting me. Now I
+mean to have you repeat your accusation before witnesses. I
+shall inform Mrs. Gosnold--"
+
+"Oh, no, Miss Manwaring! I beg of you, no! I didn't mean what you
+think, 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 make
+an exhibition of herself, however great the provocation, checked her
+steps 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 into
+her face, the unthinkable thing imputed to her, and this last time out
+of sheer, gratuitous spleen, the jealous spite of a mean-minded old
+maid. For Miss Pride had no such excuse as Adele Standish had for
+thinking Sally capable of infamy--unless indeed, Mrs. Standish had
+proved false to her pledge and had told people. But no; she'd never do
+that; not, at least, while the settlement of her insurance claim
+remained in abeyance.
+
+The brutality of it!
+
+A strong hand closing unceremoniously on her wrist brought Sally to a
+standstill within two paces of the low stone wall that guarded the
+brink of the cliff.
+
+"Look where you're going, Miss; Manwaring!" Trego's voice counselled
+her quietly. Then, seeing that she yielded readily, he released her.
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "but in another minute if I hadn't taken
+the 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'd
+like to know what that vicious old vixen found to say to upset you
+this way."
+
+"Oh, you were watching."
+
+"No; I just happened to be sticking round when you flew out of that
+fool sideshow of hers like you were possessed. And then I saw you
+weren'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," she
+asserted. "Please don't think I mean to be rude. Only," she
+gulped again, overcome by the stinging memory of that woman's
+insolence, "I'd almost as lief you hadn't stopped me--and that wall
+wasn't there!"
+
+"Now, now!" he reminded her. "It can't be as bad as all that, you
+know."
+
+"Well, but think how you would feel if you'd been twice accused of
+stealing Mrs. Gosnold's jewels last night!"
+
+"Once would be plenty," he said gravely. "I don't reckon anybody would
+say 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; you
+know a hundred different ways of sinking the poisoned barb subtly. I
+wouldn't like to be that Pride critter when you get through with her."
+
+There was unquestionably a certain amount of comfort to be gained by
+viewing the case from this angle. Sally became calmer and brightened
+perceptibly.
+
+"Perhaps," she murmured in an enigmatic manner becoming in the
+putative mistress of unutterable arts.
+
+"It's just like that shrivelled old shrew. What you might expect. If I
+had thought of it in time, I'd've been willing to make a book on
+her laying it to you."
+
+"But why?" Sally protested perplexedly.
+
+"Sure, I don't have to tell you why," he said diplomatically. "You
+know as well as I do she's plumb corroded with jealousy of you for
+winning out with her dear Abigail just when she thought she had things
+fixed. I don't suppose you know the inside story of how your
+predecessor got the sack? The Pride person was responsible. Miss
+Matring was in her way, and a good deal of her own disposition to
+boot. It was a merry war, all right, while it lasted--scheming and
+squabbling and backbiting and tattling and corrupting servants to
+carry tales--all that sort of thing. To be honest about it, I don't
+just know which was the worse of the two; they didn't either of them
+stick at much of anything noticeable. But, of course, Miss Matring was
+handicapped, not being blood-kin, and the upshot was she had to
+go--and until you showed up the old maid was actually miserable for
+want of somebody to hate. I noticed the light of battle in those beady
+little eyes of hers the minute she laid 'em on you. I'd have warned
+you, only ..."
+
+He stumbled. She encouraged him: "Why didn't you?"
+
+She didn't like Trego--that was understood--but sympathy was very
+sweet to her just then, whatever its source, and she had no real
+objection to disparagement of her slanderer, either.
+
+"Well, it wasn't my fight. And I didn't know how you'd take
+interference. You looked pretty well able to take care of yourself--in
+fact, you are. And then--I don't reckon it's going to do me any good
+to say this; but I might as well make a clean breast of it--I was just
+selfish enough to have a sneaking sort of hope, deep down, that maybe
+you'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 indignant
+eye. "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 meant
+was . . . Well, any fool could see that as long as you were so strong
+for this society racket I didn't stand much show."
+
+"Show?"
+
+"Of making good with you. Oh, look here, what's the use of beating
+about the bush? I'm a rude, two-fisted animal, and that's all against
+me. I never could flummux up my meaning successfully with a lot of
+words like--well, name no names. All the same, it's pretty hard for a
+fellow who knows the girl he's sweet on isn't crazy about him to
+come 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, almost
+supernatural, 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 like
+an old-fashioned square-rigger in a beam sea.
+
+"If you'll marry me, that is," he concluded in a breath, with obvious
+relief if with a countenance oddly shadowed in the staring moonlight
+by the heat of his distress.
+
+She tried, she meant to give him his answer without delay; it were
+kinder. But she found it impossible; the negative stuck stubbornly in
+her throat. She knew it would stab him deep. He wasn't the man to take
+love lightly; his emotions were anything but on the surface; their
+wounds would be slow to heal.
+
+And in spite of the positive animus she had all along entertained
+toward him, she didn't want to hurt him now; perhaps not strangely,
+remembering that this proposal of marriage was a direct, down-right
+protestation of implicit faith in her, uttered squarely on top of a
+most damnable indictment--remembering, too, that it was barely
+two hours since Sally herself had been ready, almost eager, to believe
+him capable of committing the very crime of implication in which he
+exonerated her without an instant's hesitation.
+
+True, she had been quick to exonerate him in her thoughts as soon as
+the suspicion was engendered in them, but she had done so almost
+reluctantly, ungenerously, not because she wanted to believe him
+innocent, but because the burden of the evidence, together with the
+counsel of instinct, had been too strong in his favour to permit more
+than 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 own
+unworthiness 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, she
+couldn'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 a
+woman, not a manikin. Marriage would mean something more to you than
+clothes, Europe, idleness, and flirting with other women's
+husbands, just as it would have to mean more to me than hiring a woman
+to live with me and entertain my friends."
+
+"How do you know? How can you tell? What do you know about me?" she
+protested almost passionately, and answered herself. "You don't know;
+you can't tell; you know nothing about me. You assert things--I only
+wish they were true--"
+
+"Oh, they're true enough," he interrupted unceremoniously. "It's no
+use trying to run yourself down to me. I couldn't feel the way I do
+about you if you were not at heart as sound as an apple, no matter
+what nonsense you may have been guilty of at one time or another, as
+every 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 me
+anything--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 as
+marrying 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--and
+you 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's
+Sally 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're
+my wife. After that you'll have to tell me--and if there's any trouble
+remaining to be straightened out then, why, it'll be my natural job as
+a husband to fix it up for you. Till then I won't listen to any more
+of your confidences that have nothing whatever to do with the fact
+that 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 order
+to get into society--"
+
+"Oh, everybody's got to be foolish about something or other. You'll
+get over this social craze. The more you see of it the more sure your
+cure. Now don't mistake me; I'm not for an instant implying that some
+of the finest people that ever walked God's green earth don't figure
+in what we call Society; and there are more of them on this little
+island, perhaps, than anywhere else in America; and I'd be the
+last to cry them down or pretend I'm not glad and proud of their
+acquaintance and friendship. The trouble is, they can't in the nature
+of things keep up their social order without attracting a cloud of
+parasites, snobs, and toadies--and that's what makes me sick of the
+whole social game as practised to-day."
+
+"And you can't understand that I am precisely what you've described--a
+parasite!"
+
+"You couldn't be if you wanted to. Maybe you think you could, but
+you're wrong; you haven't got it in you."
+
+Against such infatuation candour was powerless. She retreated to the
+last ditch. "But you told me your father's heart was set on your
+marrying a society woman!"
+
+"Well, what of that? You don't suppose I think any of them have got
+anything 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 at
+me, and if my happiness is at stake . . . Well, even if he did want to
+ruin 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 this
+sort of thing, you shall have it. And don't run away with the
+idea 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, say
+yes."
+
+"You don't know what you're doing, making me such an offer. Suppose I
+married 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 to
+pretend that for the sake of my money."
+
+Of a sudden his tone changed. "Oh, forgive me!" he pleaded. "I was a
+fool 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 hopes
+make him foolish, especially when he sees the girl in trouble of some
+sort, needing what he can give her, love and protection--and when it's
+moonlight and there's music in the air!"
+
+He checked himself with a lifted hand and stood for a moment, half
+smiling, as if made suddenly conscious of the pulsing rapture of those
+remote 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 very
+well what you mean, but I'd rather not hear it in one word of two
+letters--not to-night. I'm just foolish enough to prefer to go on
+hoping for a while, believing there was a bare chance I had
+misunderstood you."
+
+He laughed half-heartedly, said "Good night" with an admirable air of
+accepting his dismissal as a matter of course, and marched off as
+abruptly as if reminded of an overdue appointment.
+
+No other manoeuvre could have been more shrewdly calculated to advance
+his cause; nothing makes so compelling an appeal to feminine
+sympathies as a rejected suitor taking his punishment like a man; the
+emotional affinity of pity has been established ever since the
+invention of love.
+
+Sally sank down mechanically upon a little marble seat near the spot
+where they had stood talking and stared without conscious vision out
+over the silvered sea.
+
+Her thoughts were vastly unconcerned with the mysterious behaviour of
+Mrs. Standish and her brother, the inexplicable insolence of Mercedes
+Pride, the shattered bubble of her affair with Donald Lyttleton, the
+kindness of Mrs. Gosnold, or the riddle of the vanished jewelry.
+
+Now and again people passed her and gave her curious glances. She paid
+them no heed. The fact that they went in pairs, male and female after
+their kind, failed to re-excite envy in her bosom.
+
+There is deep satisfaction to be distilled from consciousness of the
+love 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 his
+devotion 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 she
+had rested there, moveless upon that secluded marble seat, spellbound
+in the preoccupation of those thoughts, at once long and sweet with
+the comfort of a solaced self-esteem, for which she had to thank the
+author of her first proposal of marriage.
+
+She rose and turned back to Gosnold House only on the prompting of
+instinct, vaguely conscious that the night had now turned its nadir
+and the time was drawing near when she must present herself first to
+her employer with the tale of last night's doings, then to Savage to
+learn his version of the happenings in New York.
+
+But by the time she reminded herself of these two matters she found
+that they had receded to a status of strangely diminished importance
+in her understanding. It was her duty, of course, a duty imposed upon
+her by her dependent position as much as by her affection for the
+lady, to tell Mrs. Gosnold all she knew without any reservation
+whatever; and it was equally her duty to herself, as a matter of
+common self-protection, to hear what Savage professed such anxiety to
+communicate. And not quite definitely realising that it was Mr.
+Trego's passion which overshadowed both of these businesses, she
+wondered mildly at her unconcern with either. Somehow she would gladly
+have sealed both lips and ears to them and gone on basking
+uninterruptedly in the warmth of her sudden self-complacence.
+
+By no means the least remarkable property of the common phenomenon of
+love is the contentment which it never fails to kindle in the bosom of
+its object, regardless of its source. In a world where love is far
+more general than aversion, wherein the most hateful and hideous is
+frequently the most beloved, it remains true that even a king will
+strut with added arrogance because of the ardent glance of a
+serving-wench.
+
+And so, failing to realise her tardiness, it was not unnatural that
+Sally, entering the house by that historic side door and ascending the
+staircase that led directly to her bedchamber, should think to stop a
+moment and consult the mirror for confirmation of Mr. Trego's implicit
+compliments.
+
+As one result of this action, instigated in the first instance less by
+vanity 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 was
+enough air astir to shut it with a bang as she turned up the
+staircase. Two seconds later that bang was echoed by a door above, and
+a quick patter of light footfalls followed. But by the time Sally
+gained the landing there was no one visible in the length of the
+corridor from end to end of that wing.
+
+Now the door of the room opposite her was wide open on a dark
+interior. And the room adjoining was untenanted, as she knew. It
+seemed impossible that the second slam could have been caused by any
+door other than that of her own bedchamber. Yet why should anyone have
+trespassed there but one of the housemaids? And if the trespasser had
+been a housemaid, why that sudden and furtive flight and swift
+disappearance 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 the
+room discovered nothing superficially out of place, and the little
+gilt clock on her dressing-table told her that she was already seven
+minutes behind time. She delayed only for one hasty survey of the
+flushed face with star-bright eyes that the mirror revealed, and then
+with an inarticulate reflection that, after all, one could
+hardly blame Mr. Trego very severely, Sally caught up her long dark
+cloak and made off down the corridor, past the head of the main
+staircase, to the door of Mrs. Gosnold's boudoir.
+
+A voice sharp with vexation answered her knock; she entered to find
+its owner fuming, and not only that, but surprisingly _en déshabillé_.
+The dress of Queen Elizabeth was gone, and Mrs. Gosnold stood on the
+threshold of her bedchamber clothed simply in undergarments and
+impatience.
+
+"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's
+murmur 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 seek
+enlightenment.
+
+"But what's the matter? What have I done? What--?"
+
+"Nothing much--merely almost upset the applecart for me!" Mrs. Gosnold
+laughed in grim humour, her own fingers busily aiding the maid's.
+"Come, step out of that skirt, please. If you'd been two minutes
+later . . . I'm simply going to pretend I'm you for ten minutes or
+so," she explained, lowering the shimmering gray Quaker skirt over her
+own 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 came
+on the scene, to make me very suspicious of that young rascal, even
+more so than I had every right to be from what you had told me. Now I
+mean 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't
+have said a hundred times tonight in as many corners of the house and
+grounds without a soul hearing a word or thinking it odd that two
+young people should be exchanging confidences--and both of you masked
+into the bargain."
+
+Sally, now entirely divested of her masquerade, resignedly shrugged
+herself 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 to
+disguise the fact that I'm a bit more matronly than yourself--worse
+luck!"
+
+"But your voice--"
+
+"Haven't you ever read about 'guarded accents' in novels? Those will
+be mine, precisely, when I talk to my graceless nephew. I shan't speak
+once above a whisper--and I defy any man to tell my whisper from yours
+or any other woman's for that matter. Don't flatter yourself, my dear!
+I shall fool him perfectly; there's precious little to choose between
+any two women in the dark!"
+
+Already she was almost finished dressing, and as yet Sally hadn't had
+a chance to breathe a word about her own information.
+
+"But there's something I must tell you," she insisted, suddenly
+reminded.
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Last night--things that happened after everybody had gone to bed. You
+knew 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't
+you tell me before?"
+
+"I didn't know about the robbery, and I thought it was none of my
+affair--"
+
+"It doesn't matter." Mrs. Gosnold caught up her cloak and threw it to
+the maid to adjust on her shoulders. "Whatever you saw had nothing to
+do 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 about
+her. "Wait here till I come back. Then you may tell me about Don
+Lyttleton 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 the
+identity of the thief--even though, the girl told herself, she had all
+along suspected as much--kept Sally quiet for the next several
+minutes. She was sorely tempted to question the maid, but one look at
+that quiet, impassive countenance assured her that this would be
+wasted breath.
+
+Insensibly the tempo of a haunting waltz that sang clear in the night
+beyond the open windows wove itself into the texture of Sally's
+thoughts 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't
+danced once that night, had purposely avoided every chance of an
+invitation to dance. And now, of a sudden, she wanted to, without
+reason or excuse.
+
+It was very curious. She wondered at herself. What had worked this
+change? Was it really nothing more nor less than a declaration of love
+on the part of a man she--didn't altogether like?
+
+Though, of course, she hadn't ever been quite fair to him. He had
+admirable qualities. His honesty. His scorn of pretence and
+subterfuge. 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 in
+decency 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 need
+delay 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 five
+or ten minutes, I know. She said as much before you came in."
+
+Sally got up and went to a window which overlooked the driveway and
+lawn. Parting the curtains, she glanced out. The lawn was fair with
+moonlight, the driveway silver-blue, the woods behind dark and still.
+There was a closed car waiting at one side of the porte-cochere. The
+others--all those belonging to Gosnold House, as well as those of
+guests for the fete--were hidden among the trees bordering the road or
+parked in the open spaces around the garage and stables at a
+considerable remove from the house.
+
+There was no one to be seen on the lawn or drive, no hurrying figure
+cloaked 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 was
+all right?"
+
+"I don't know, Miss Manwaring. She doesn't like interference, if I may
+make so bold as to say so."
+
+A little later, however, the woman added tentatively: "I wouldn't care
+to 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 absurd
+to think that anything untoward could have happened to Mrs. Gosnold on
+her own grounds, meeting her own nephew for a clandestine talk. And of
+course she might have learned something from Savage which had induced
+her, for her own ends, to maintain her masquerade for a longer time.
+She was quite possibly somewhere on the terrace or in the formal
+garden.
+
+Marie was back within five minutes, wearing an apprehensive
+countenance.
+
+"There's nobody out back, miss, near the road, where she said she was
+to 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. Then
+I'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 its
+unconventionality as a costume, resumed her mask against the chance of
+meeting anybody in her passage through the corridor to the far wing of
+the building.
+
+She fairly ran in her impatience, and through this haste was brought
+to the head of the main staircase at the precise moment when an
+unmasked Harlequin was about to set foot upon the upper landing.
+
+Mr. Savage was smiling quietly to himself and slapping his calves
+lightly with his lath-sword; nothing in his manner excused the
+suspicion that he was not perfectly satisfied with himself and all his
+circumstances.
+
+Somewhat reassured by the vision of this amiable countenance, Sally
+paused, and won a glance of quizzical inquiry, with especial
+application 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 the
+features 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 his
+make-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 the
+banister-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 possible
+that Mrs. Gosnold might furiously resent betrayal of her stratagem.
+And yet Savage's look of pure fright only augmented Sally's solicitude
+for her employer.
+
+"You haven't been out! But ten minutes ago--out there--behind the
+trees--"
+
+She shook her head and tried to smile a superior sort of a smile: "It
+wasn't I who met you."
+
+The man made a gesture of hopeless confusion, and she could not but
+remark his surprising loss of colour. Suddenly he stepped to her side
+and seized her roughly by the arm.
+
+"Then who was it'?" he demanded furiously. "If it wasn't you--who
+then? Damn it, you'd better tell me--!"
+
+"Let go my arm!" she demanded with a flash of temper that was instantly
+respected. "If you must know," she went on, reckless at consequences,
+"it was your aunt who met and talked to you out there. Don't you
+understand? 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, but
+failed for the constriction of his throat. For another instant he
+stared 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 the
+reflection that he must avoid attracting attention, and went on more
+slowly, 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 a
+mood of dark perplexity.
+
+Surely it would seem that Savage must have been engaged in some
+very damnable business indeed, and have given himself away
+irremediably to Mrs. Gosnold, thinking her Sally, to exhibit such
+unmitigated consternation on discovery of his error.
+
+But what could it have been? Sally could imagine nothing in their
+admittedly singular relations which, being disclosed to the aunt,
+should so completely confound the nephew.
+
+Mrs. Gosnold had suggested no insufferable resentment of the deception
+practised upon her, when informed of it by Sally. And why, therefore,
+Mr. Savage should comport himself as if the heavens had fallen on
+learning that he had betrayed himself unconsciously to his aunt, was
+something 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 to
+return to her room on time; then this panic of Savage's.
+
+It was patently the girl's immediate business to find one or the other
+or both of them and make sure that nothing was radically wrong after
+all.
+
+By happy chance her very prettiest evening frock didn't hook up the
+back; 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 the
+apprehensive eyes of the maid, even before this last could
+speak, the news that the mistress was still missing, and so, darting
+down-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 youngest
+and the oldest people; there was perceptibly more room on the
+dancing-floor of the veranda, which was populated chiefly by the
+younger set; in the supper-room the more rowdy crowd hung on with
+numbers undiminished and enthusiasm unabated if liberally dampened;
+about the grounds there was far less movement, far more lingering in
+sequestered nooks and shadows. Ecstatica, for one, had folded her
+tent, 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 whom
+Sally sought--Mrs. Gosnold or Savage or, failing these, Mrs. Standish.
+
+Now when she had nearly completed one exhaustive round of the grounds
+and was wondering where next to turn, with neither warning nor
+expectation she came around one end of a screen of shrubbery and
+stopped just short of surprising another sentimental tableau, staged
+in the identical setting used for Mr. Trego's declaration and cast
+with a change of but one mummer.
+
+And in the instant marked by recognition of that selfsame marble
+seat commanding that same view of silvered sea and bathed in the light
+of that same heartless moon, Sally seemed to hear the echo of her
+destiny's sardonic laughter.
+
+The gentleman was Mr. Trego, the lady Mrs. Artemas; and they were
+ignorant of Sally's observation for the simple reason that Mr. Trego's
+back was toward her and the head of Mrs. Artemas was pillowed on his
+shoulder--her arms white bonds around his neck.
+
+And as if this were not enough, Sally's discovery of them anticipated
+by the barest moment the appearance of another couple around the
+farther end of the clump of shrubbery--two people who happened to be
+husband and wife and known to Sally as recent additions to the
+house-party.
+
+These, too, stopped sharply and would have considerately withdrawn but
+for the fact that, standing as he did, Trego could not help seeing
+them. He spoke a word, presumably, in the ear so near his lips. The
+woman swung away in a twinkling, breaking from his arms but retaining
+one of his hands, and faced the two with a little excited laugh that
+sounded almost hysterical; and Sally noted that her eyes were bright
+with 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 caught
+us in the act! You and Mr. Warrenden will be the first to know
+of our happiness . . ."
+
+Sally heard no more. The scene vanished from her vision as if the
+moonlight had been extinguished. It was some moments before she
+realised that she was running madly, as if hoping flight might help
+her exorcise that ironic vision. But when she did realise what she was
+doing, she but ran the faster; let people think what they would; she
+no longer cared; their esteem no more mattered, for she was finished
+with 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 her
+hands into two hard, tight fists, gritting her teeth, and fighting
+with all her strength to keep back the storm that threatened of sobs
+and tears and nervous laughter.
+
+It wasn't as if she had really cared for the man--it was worse. It
+was the sum of all the blows her poor, struggling pride had suffered
+in the course of the last twenty-four hours, beginning with her
+awakening to the worthlessness of Lyttleton and realisation of the low
+esteem in which he held her, and culminating in this facer from one
+whose love she had refused but none the less prized for the
+comfort it gave her.
+
+Nor was this all. In addition to the writhings of an exacerbated
+vanity, she was conscious of a sense of personal loss, as if a
+landmark had been razed in the perspective of her life. In spite of
+those faults and shortcomings, so unduly emphasised through the man's
+own deliberate intent and so inexcusable in one who appreciated so
+well what was expected of a man in his position, Sally had
+subconsciously from the very first felt Trego to be one whose faith
+and loyalty were as a rock, whose friendship might be counted upon as
+an enduring tower of refuge.
+
+And to have him go from her, protesting passionate patience, leaving
+her exalted with the consciousness that she was wanted--to have him go
+thus from her and straightway fall into the trap which Mrs. Artemas
+unaffectedly baited--the trap of which he had not once but many times
+obliquely alluded to in half-humorous, half-genuine terms of fear--it
+was, or seemed to be, intolerable.
+
+The waves of burning emotion that swept and scorched her were
+alternately of rage and chagrin.
+
+Granted the opportunity, she could easily conceive herself as dealing
+very vigorously with the mantrap.
+
+Some one rattled the knob of her door. Startled, Sally jumped up, and
+with her wadded handkerchief dabbed hastily and superfluously at
+her eyes, which were quite dry as yet.
+
+She did not answer, but eyed apprehensively the dark recess in which
+the 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 her
+hand to the switch. She was sadly confused and unstrung, her thoughts
+awhirl and nerves ajangle. The last thing she wished just then was to
+meet and talk to anybody.
+
+Still it might be Mrs. Gosnold or her messenger. And that lady was
+Sally's one remaining friend on earth. She swallowed hard, took
+herself firmly in hand, and when the knock was repeated was able to
+answer in a tolerably even voice:
+
+"Well? Who is it?"
+
+"Miss Manwaring, are you there?" Heartfelt relief informed the voice
+of Mrs. Standish. "Please let me in. I must speak with you
+immediately."
+
+Sullenly, without replying, Sally turned on the light, moved to the
+door, unlocked and opened it.
+
+"Come in," she said ungraciously.
+
+Mrs. Standish swept in, gay crimson domino over fluffy skirts and
+slim, pink legs assorting oddly with the agitation betrayed by her
+unsmiling eyes, her pallor accentuating the rouge on her cheeks
+like rose-petals against snow.
+
+"Thank God!" she whispered, "I've found you at last. I've looked
+everywhere for the last half-hour. This is the second time I've been
+here. You just got in, of course. Where _have_ you been?"
+
+"Does it matter?" Sally fenced, maintaining a stony countenance. "I
+mean, 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 as
+if I were a ghost!"
+
+"You know why!" The woman's voice trembled with restrained rage. "You
+impossible girl! Why, why did you let Aunt Abby go to meet him instead
+of you? It was fatal, it was criminal. Of course, he gave the whole
+show away to her, never guessing. Now it's all up with us; we'll never
+be asked here again; and the chances are she'll cut us out of her will
+as 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 plotting
+together out there just before I came on the scene. She was at
+the window overhead, listening through the shutters. I don't know what
+you were talking about--she didn't tell me--but it was enough to make
+her insist on my giving her my costume so that she might go and hear
+the rest of it."
+
+Mrs. Standish bit her lip. And her eyes shifted uneasily from Sally's
+face.
+
+"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 wanted
+to find her and set things straight if he could. But she"--the woman
+stumbled and her eyes shifted again--"she's gone and hidden
+herself--plotting our humiliation and punishment, I dare say. I only
+wish I knew. Walter is still hunting everywhere for her. See here: I
+presume you understand you've got to go now?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For one good reason--if what has happened isn't enough to persuade
+you--because there will be a man here from New York by the first
+boat--seven o'clock to-morrow morning--with a warrant for the arrest
+of Sarah Manvers."
+
+"Are you telling the truth, Mrs. Standish?"
+
+"How dare you! No, I won't let you make me lose my temper with
+your insolence. The matter is too serious, and I've no wish to see you
+suffer, even if you have ruined everything for us. You must listen to
+me, Miss Manvers: be advised and go. I don't know what put them on
+your trail, what made them suspect you were here, but the
+burglary-insurance people had the warrant sworn out yesterday
+afternoon and started a man up by the evening boat. Walter got a
+telegram to that effect about ten o'clock. That's what he wanted to
+say to you--that, and to give you some money and directions for
+getting 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 my
+things in the bath-room were left there with your knowledge at the
+time when you took pity on me and gave me a change of clothing to
+travel in."
+
+"It's too late. If we had explained it that way, to begin with, it
+would have been all right. But neither of us thought. And Walter
+bungled things frightfully in New York. Now if we come forward with
+any such story they'll think we're all in a conspiracy to defraud the
+company."
+
+"Oh!" Sally exclaimed abruptly, with an accent of enlightenment that
+discountenanced 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 the
+mainland 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 before
+half past nine. And you ought to be able to lose yourself in that time
+somehow. Hurry; I'll help you pack a satchel. You'd better wear that
+blue serge; everybody wears blue serge, so it's inconspicuous. And
+here'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 see
+that, 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 little
+while ago; but you seem to have forgotten that now--"
+
+"I wish you would," Mrs. Standish replied, schooling her voice to
+accents of dulcet entreaty. "I was beside myself with anxiety--"
+
+"Wait. If I go before those jewels are recovered--disappear, as you
+want me to--it will be equivalent to a confession that I myself stole
+them. And suppose I did."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I say, suppose I did, for the sake of argument. What right have you
+to assume that I didn't commit the theft? No more than you had to
+accuse me as you did. And until the theft is made good, what right
+have you to let me go and, possibly, get away with my loot? No!" Sally
+shook 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 a
+scapegoat for you. I'm not going to run away now and hide simply to
+further your plans for swindling the burglary-insurance company. I'll
+see 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 grew
+ghastly with the pallor of her rage. And she trembled visibly.
+
+But what else she might have said to the defiant girl was cut short by
+the sudden and unceremonious opening of the door to admit three
+persons.
+
+The first and last of these were Mercedes Pride and Mr. Lyttleton.
+Between them entered a man unknown to Sally--a hard-featured citizen
+in very ordinary business clothing, cold of eye, uncompromising of
+manner.
+
+Jubilation glowed in the witch's glance; anticipative relish of the
+flavour of triumph lent her voice a shriller note. She struck an
+attitude, singling out Sally with a denunciatory arm.
+
+"There she is! That's the woman who calls herself Sara Manwaring. Now
+arrest her--make her confess what she's done with those jewels--pack
+her off to jail!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE PLANT
+
+The very sharpness of the attack shocked Sally into such apparent calm
+as she might not have been able even to simulate had she been given
+more time to prepare herself.
+
+After that first involuntary start of surprise and indignation she
+stood quite still, but with a defiant chin well elevated and her
+shoulders back, and if she had in her turn grown pale, it was less
+with fright than with the contained exasperation that lighted the
+fires in her eyes as they ranged from face to face of the four.
+
+Lyttleton, she noticed, lingered uneasily near the door, hanging his
+head, avoiding her glance, almost frankly shamefaced.
+
+The spinster posed herself with arms akimbo and smirked superciliously
+at 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 ago
+sedulously dissembled. She arched an inquiring eyebrow and
+smiled an inscrutable smile, questioning the proceedings without
+altogether disapproving them.
+
+Nearer Sally than any of these, the strange man confronted the girl
+squarely, 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," Mercedes
+commented.
+
+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 Private
+Investigation Agency, Boston. Mrs. Gosnold sent for me by
+long-distance telephone this morning. I've been here all evening,
+working up this case on the quiet. The understanding was that I wasn't
+to take any steps without her permission; but she left it to me to use
+my best judgment in case her little plan for getting a confession
+didn't work. So I thought I'd better not wait any longer, seeing how
+late it is and how long after the time limit she set--and all."
+
+"Do I understand Mrs. Gosnold gave you permission to break into
+my room with--these people?" Sally demanded.
+
+"No, miss--not exactly. As I say, she told me to use my best judgment
+in case the jewels weren't returned. And, as I've said, it was getting
+late, and Mrs. Gosnold nowhere to be found, and I thought I'd better
+get busy."
+
+"Mrs. Gosnold has disappeared?"
+
+"Well, you might call it that. Anyway, we can't seem to find any trace
+of her. I've got an idea that maid of hers knows something, but if she
+does she won't talk to me. And considering that, and everything--the
+circumstances being so unusual all around--it seemed to be up to me to
+take 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 for
+this outrageous intrusion and accusation."
+
+"No, miss; I'm coming to that. You see, the first thing was to get
+that letter-box opened and examine those envelopes. I got several of
+the gentlemen to act as a sort of a committee, so as nobody could kick
+on 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. The
+two had something written on them--anonymous information, so to speak.
+I brought them along so that Miss Manwaring would understand, in case
+there was any mistake, it wasn't my fault."
+
+He fumbled in a pocket, brought forth the cards, and with some
+hesitation handed them over to Sally.
+
+Both bore messages laboriously printed in pencil, of much the same
+tenor:
+
+"_Suggest you look into Miss Manwaring's antecedents--also her
+actions between one and three o'clock last night_."
+
+"_Ask Miss Manwaring what she was doing out of bed after one last
+night--search of her room might prove helpful_."
+
+Silently Sally returned the cards.
+
+"You see," the detective apologised heavily, "after that, there wasn't
+anything 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 to
+ask you. Most of the gentlemen present when I opened the envelopes
+seemed to think I ought to do something at once. Personally, I'd
+rather have consulted Mrs. Gosnold before putting it up to you this
+way."
+
+"I'm afraid you will find that would have been wiser."
+
+"Yes, miss, perhaps. But she being absent and no way of finding out
+when she was liable to be back and the case left in my hands, to act
+on my discretion, providing no confession was made--"
+
+"Still, I advise you to wait. If you think you must do something, why
+not employ your talents to find Mrs. Gosnold?"
+
+"Well--that's so, too; and I would, only it was suggested that maybe
+she hadn't disappeared really, but was just keeping out of sight until
+this business was settled, preferring not to be around when anything
+unpleasant 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 may
+care 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 your
+job 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. Standish
+ought to be able to tell you that, Mr. Mason. She brought
+Miss--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 regard
+was ominous. She hesitated, apparently revising what she had at first
+intended to say. "She came to me last week--the day we left New
+York--with a letter of recommendation purporting to be from Mrs.
+English--Mrs. Cornwallis English, the social worker, who is now in
+Italy."
+
+"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. I
+can'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 a
+fancy to her, gave her an outfit of clothing, brought her here and
+introduced her to my aunt, who personally engaged her, understanding
+all the circumstances. That is the limit of my responsibility for Miss
+Manwaring."
+
+Sally drew a deep breath; at all events, the woman had not dared
+repeat any of her former abominable accusations; if she was
+unfriendly, she was also committed to a neutral attitude: no more talk
+of 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 with
+a murmured word or two. She sniffed resentfully but held her peace.
+
+"I can't accept your apology;" Sally returned with dignity. "But I'm
+sure you have no longer any excuse for annoying me."
+
+But Mr. Mason held his ground. "The trouble is," he insisted, "after
+those cards had been read, one of the gentlemen said he had seen you
+out 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 from
+speech.
+
+"I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it," Lyttleton said blandly,
+looking Sally straight in the face. "But the circumstances were
+peculiar, to say the least, if not incriminating. I saw this
+cloaked figure from my window. I thought its actions suspicious. I
+dressed hurriedly and ran down in time to intercept Miss Manwaring at
+an appointment with a strange man. I didn't see his face. He turned
+and ran. While I was questioning Miss Manwaring Mr. Trego came up and
+misconstrued the situation. We had a bit of a row, and before it was
+cleared up Miss Manwaring had escaped."
+
+Sally's sole comment was an "Oh!" that quivered with its burden of
+loathing.
+
+"Sorry," Lyttleton finished cheerfully; "but I felt I had to mention
+it. I dare say the matter was innocent enough, but still Miss
+Manwaring hasn't explained it, so far as I know; I felt it my duty to
+speak."
+
+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's
+permission."
+
+"There!" Miss Pride interpolated with sour satisfaction. "If she has
+nothing to fear, why should she object?"
+
+"Do be quiet, Mercedes," Mrs. Standish advised sweetly. "Miss
+Manwaring is quite right to object, even if innocent."
+
+"You see, miss," Mason persisted, "I have Mrs. Gosnold's authority to
+make 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 outrageous
+thing. 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 no
+longer depend even on Trego.
+
+As the detective tentatively approached her dressing-table the girl
+swung a wicker armchair about so that it faced a corner of the room
+and 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. She
+trembled violently with impotent exasperation. It was intolerable, yet
+it must be endured. There was one satisfaction: they would find
+nothing, and presently Mrs. Gosnold would reappear and their insolence
+be 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 this
+little island world a heartless, selfish place, that she had yet to
+meet one of its inhabitants by whom her faith and affection had not
+been betrayed, deceived and despised.
+
+Remembering this, dared she count upon even Mrs. Gosnold in this hour
+of greatest need?
+
+Had that lady not, indeed, already failed her protegee by indulging in
+the whim of this unaccountable disappearance?
+
+Must one believe what had been suggested, that she, believing her
+confidence misplaced in Sally, was merely keeping out of the way until
+the unhappy business had been accomplished and the putative cause of
+it all removed from Gosnold House?
+
+Behind her back the futile business of searching her room, so
+inevitably predestined to failure and confusion, was being vigorously
+prosecuted, to judge by the sounds that marked its progress. And from
+the shifting play of shadows upon the walls she had every reason to
+believe that Miss Pride was lending the detective a willing hand. If
+so, it was well in character; nothing could be more consistent
+with the spinster's disposition than this eagerness to believe the
+worst of the woman she chose to consider her rival in the affections
+of Mrs. Gosnold. A pitiful, impotent, jealousy-bitten creature: Sally
+was almost sorry for her, picturing the abashment of the woman when
+her hopes proved fruitless, her, fawning overtures toward forgiveness
+and reconciliation. Possibly she had been one of the two to accuse
+Sally on the cards.
+
+The other? Not Mrs. Standish. She would hardly direct suspicion
+against the girl she despised when by so doing she would imperil her
+own schemes. She was too keenly selfish to cut off her nose to spite
+her face. Sally could imagine Mrs. Standish as remaining all this
+while conspicuously aloof, overseeing the search with her habitual
+manner of weary toleration, but inwardly more than a little tremulous
+with fear lest the detective or Mercedes chance upon that jewel-case
+and so upset her claim against the burglary-insurance concern.
+
+Lyttleton, too, would in all likelihood be standing aside, posing with
+a nonchalant shoulder against the wall, his slender, nicely manicured
+fingers stroking his scrubby moustache (now that he had discarded the
+beard of Sir Francis, together with his mask) and not quite hiding the
+smirk of his contemptible satisfaction--the satisfaction of one who
+had lied needlessly, meanly, out of sheer spite, and successfully,
+since his lie, being manufactured out of whole cloth, could never be
+controverted 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 herself
+with a shudder of disgust) she might thank her lucky stars for this
+blessing, that she had been spared the unspeakable ignominy of not
+finding Mr. Lyttleton out before it was too late.
+
+Trego, too; though she could consider a little more compassionately
+the poor figure Trego cut, with his pretensions to sturdy common sense
+dissipated and exposing the sentimentalist so susceptible that he was
+unable to resist the blandishments of the first woman who chose to set
+her cap for him. Poor thing: he would suffer a punishment even beyond
+his deserts when Mrs. Artemas had consummated her purpose and bound
+him legally to her.
+
+For all that, Sally felt constrained to admit, Trego had been in a
+measure right in his contention, though it had needed his folly to
+persuade her of his wisdom. She was out of her element here. And now
+she began to despair of ever learning to breathe with ease the
+rarefied atmosphere of the socially elect. The stifling midsummer air
+that stagnated in Huckster's Bargain Basement was preferable, heavy
+though it was with the smell of those to whom soap is a luxury
+and frequently a luxury uncoveted; there, at least, sincerity and
+charity did not suffocate and humbler virtues flourished.
+
+Bitterly Sally begrudged the concession that she had been wrong. All
+along she had nourished her ambition for the society of her betters on
+the 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 blow
+at her pride.
+
+A low whistle interrupted at once her morose reflections and the mute
+activity of the search.
+
+Immediately she heard the detective exclaim: "What's this?"
+
+Miss Pride uttered a shrill cry of satisfaction; Mrs. Standish said
+sharply: "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 from
+her 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 in
+the light of the electrics.
+
+Momentarily the earth quaked beneath Sally's feet.
+
+Her eyes were fixed on the ring and blank with terror; her mouth
+dropped witlessly ajar; there was no more colour in her face than in
+this paper; never a countenance spelled guilt more damningly than
+hers.
+
+"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--what
+is 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's
+finger?"
+
+"No--never anywhere."
+
+"Mrs. Gosnold seldom wears the ring." Mrs. Standish put in; "but it is
+none 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. I
+have no idea how it got where you found it. Somebody must have put it
+there." Sally caught her distracted head between her hands and tried
+her best to compose herself. But it was useless; the evidence was too
+frightfully clear against her; hysteria threatened.
+
+"Mrs. Standish gave me the stockings," she stammered wildly, "rolled
+up as you found them. Ask her."
+
+"Oh, come, Miss Manwaring; you go too far!" Mrs. Standish told her
+coldly. "If you are possibly innocent, compose yourself and prove it.
+If you are guilty, you may as well confess and not strain our patience
+any longer. But don't try to drag me into the affair; I won't have
+it."
+
+"I guess there isn't much question of innocence or guilt," Mason
+commented. "Here's evidence enough. It only remains to locate the rest
+of 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 suspicion
+on 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 it
+isn'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," the
+detective averred; "and I'm a pretty good little looker. That's my
+business, of course. I'm willing to swear there's no more jewelry
+concealed 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 left
+this one piece buried here? No; you'll find she's hidden the rest of
+the stuff somewhere--about the house or grounds, maybe--or passed it
+on to a confederate, the guy you saw her talking to last night, as
+like as not and held out this ring to make sure of her bit when it
+comes to a split-up."
+
+"Still," Lyttleton persisted, "ought you to take any chances?"
+
+"Well . . ." The detective shuffled with embarrassment. "Of course," he
+said with brilliant inspiration, "if these ladies will undertake the
+job . . ."
+
+Miss Pride stirred smartly. "It's not what I want to do," she
+insisted, "but if you insist, and on dear Abigail's account . . ."
+
+With a tremendous effort Sally whipped her faculties together and
+temporarily 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 any
+indignity you can think of. But if Mrs. Standish and Miss Pride think
+I will permit them to search me in her absence . . ."
+
+She laughed shortly. "They'd better not try it--that's all!" and on
+this 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. And
+dear Abigail is so peculiar. Perhaps it would be best to wait till she
+gets 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 to
+jail?"
+
+"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 take
+the key. She can't get out of the window without risking her neck--and
+if she did make a getaway uninjured, she can't leave the Island before
+morning. 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 the
+door 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 the
+consolation of tears.
+
+The wall upon which her vacant vision focused was not more blankly
+white than her despair was blankly black. She was utterly bereft of
+hope; no ray penetrated that bleak darkness which circumscribed her
+understanding.
+
+Now the last frail prop had been knocked from under her precarious
+foothold in the faith and favour of Mrs. Gosnold.
+
+As to the identity of the enemy who had done this thing Sally
+entertained not a shadow of doubt, though lacking this proof she could
+not have believed she owned one so vindictive, ruthless and fiendishly
+ingenious.
+
+But after what had happened it seemed most indisputable that
+Lyttleton, not content with avenging his overnight discomfiture
+by an unscrupulous lie, had deliberately plotted and planted this
+additional false evidence against the girl to the end that she might
+beat out her life against the stone walls of a penitentiary.
+
+For who would not believe his word against hers? Lyttleton had stolen
+the 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 in
+a prearranged spot? For what else had the boat put in from the yacht
+to the beach? As for the window of the signals, it might well have
+been Lyttleton's, which adjoined the row of three which Sally had
+settled upon; and she had delayed so long after seeing him disappear
+on 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 knew
+had been watching him.
+
+And if he hadn't stolen the jewels, what else was that "private
+matter" which he had been so anxious to keep quiet that he was
+resigned to purchase Sally's silence even at the cost of making love
+to her? And if not he, who had been the thief whose identity Mrs.
+Gosnold was so anxious to conceal that she had invented her silly
+scheme for extracting an anonymous confession?--her statement to the
+contrary notwithstanding that Lyttleton had not stolen the
+jewels and that she knew positively who had! The man was a favourite
+of Mrs. Gosnold's; she had proved it too often by open indulgence of
+his nonsense. He amused her. And it seemed that in this milieu the
+virtue of being amusing outweighed all vices.
+
+Why else had Mrs. Gosnold refused to listen to the story Sally was so
+anxious to tell her about her precious Don Lyttleton? She must have
+known, then, that Sally was under suspicion. Miss Pride had known it,
+or she would not have found the courage to accuse the girl under the
+guise of fortune-telling; and what Mercedes knew her dear Abigail
+unfailingly was made a party to. And knowing all this, still she had
+sought 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's
+prophecy.
+
+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 was
+ranging wildly to and fro between the door and window. She halted, and
+the mirror of her dressing-table mocked her with the counterfeit
+presentment of herself, pallid and distraught in all the petty
+prettiness of her borrowed finery.
+
+In a sudden seizure of passion she fairly tore the frock from her
+body, wrecking it beyond repair.
+
+Then, calmed somewhat by reaction from this transport, she reflected
+that presently they would be coming to drag her off to jail, and she
+must be dressed and ready.
+
+Turning to her wardrobe, she selected its soberest garments--the blue
+serge tailleur advised by Mrs. Standish--and donned them.
+
+This done, she packed a hand-bag with a few necessities, sat down, and
+waited.
+
+The minutes of that vigil dragged like hours.
+
+She began to realise that it was growing very late. The guests of the
+fete had all departed. The music had long since been silenced. Looking
+from her window, she saw the terrace and gardens cold and empty in the
+moonlight.
+
+And at this sight temptation to folly assailed her and the counsels of
+despair prevailed.
+
+There was none to prevent the attempt, and the drop from window-sill
+to turf was not more than twelve feet. She risked, it was true, a
+sprained ankle, but she ran a chance of escaping. And even if
+she had to limp down to the beach, there were boats to be found
+there--rowboats drawn up on the sand--and there was the bare
+possibility that she might be able to row across the strait to the
+mainland 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 her
+innocence.
+
+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 her
+legs over, and let herself down until she hung by both hands from the
+sill.
+
+And then she repented. She was of a sudden terribly afraid.
+Remembering too late the high heels of her slippers, she discounted
+the certainty of a turned ankle--which would hurt frightfully even if
+it failed to incapacitate her totally. For the life of her she could
+not release her grasp, though all ready the drag of her weight was
+beginning to cause most perceptible aches in the muscles of her arms.
+
+She panted with fright--and caught her breath on a sob to hear herself
+called softly from below.
+
+"Miss Manwaring! For the love of Mike--!"
+
+Trego!
+
+She looked down and confirmed recognition of his voice with the
+sight of his upturned face of amazement. He stood almost immediately
+beneath her. Heaven--or the hell that had brewed her
+misadventures--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 again
+softly, 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 smooth
+face of the wall.
+
+At this his tone changed. He came more nearly under and planted
+himself with wide-spread feet and outstretched arms.
+
+"You can't hold on there any longer," he insisted. "Let go. Drop. I'll
+catch you."
+
+Only the mortification of that prospect nerved her aching fingers to
+retain their grip as long as they did--which, however, was not
+overlong.
+
+She felt herself slipping, remembered that she mustn't scream,
+whatever happened, experienced an instant of shuddering suspense, then
+an instantaneous eternity wherein, paradoxically, part of her seemed
+still to be clinging to the window-ledge while most of her was
+spinning giddily down through a bottomless pit, saw the grinning moon
+reel dizzily in the blue vault of heaven--and with a little shock
+landed 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 his
+smiling face, bent over hers, of a low chuckle, and then--to her
+complete stupefaction--that she was being kissed.
+
+He went about that business, having committed himself to it, in a most
+business-like fashion; he kissed (as he would have said) for keeps,
+kissed her lips hungrily, ardently, and most thoroughly; he had been
+wanting to for a long time, and now that his time was come he made the
+most of it.
+
+She was at first too stunned and shocked to resist. And for another
+moment a curious medley of emotions kept her inert in his arms, of
+which the most coherent was a lunatic notion that she, too, had been
+wanting just this to happen, just this way, for the longest time. And
+when at length she remembered and felt her anger mounting and was
+ready to struggle, he disappointingly set her down upon her feet.
+
+"There!" he said with satisfaction. "Now that's settled--and a good
+job, too!"
+
+She turned on him furiously.
+
+"How dared you-!"
+
+"Didn't I deserve it, catching you the way I did?" he asked, opening
+his eyes in mock wonder. "And didn't you deserve it for being so silly
+as to try anything like that?" He jerked his head too ward that
+window. "What on earth possessed you--?"
+
+"Don't you know? Don't you understand?" she stormed. "I'm accused of
+stealing Mrs. Gosnold's jewels--locked up. You knew that surely!"
+
+"What an infernal outrage!" he cried indignantly. "No, I didn't know
+it. How would I? I"--he faltered--"I've been having troubles of my
+own."
+
+That drove in like a knife-thrust the memory of the scene in the
+garden with Mrs. Artemas. The girl recoiled from him as from something
+indescribably loathsome.
+
+"Oh!" she cried in disgust, "you are too contemptible!"
+
+A third voice cut short his retort, a hail from above. "Hello, down
+there!"
+
+With a start Sally looked up. Her window was alight again, and
+somebody was leaning head and shoulders out.
+
+"Hello, I say! Is that the Manwaring woman '? Stop her; she's escaping
+arrest!"
+
+Trego barred the way to the gardens; and that was as well (she thought
+in a flash) for now the only hope for her was to lose herself
+temporarily in the shadows of the shrubbery.
+
+The thought of the trees that stood between the grounds and the
+highway was vaguely in her mind with its invitation to shelter when
+she turned and darted like a hunted rabbit around the corner of the
+house.
+
+Before Trego regained sight of her she was on the lawns. Crossing them
+like the shadow of a wind-sped cloud, she darted into the obscurity of
+the trees and vanished. And Mr. Trego, observing Mr. Lyttleton emerge
+from under the porte-cochere and start in pursuit, paused long enough
+deftly to trip up that gentleman with all the good will imaginable and
+sent him sprawling.
+
+Frantic with fright, her being wholly obsessed by the one thought of
+escape, Sally flew on down the drive until, on the point of leaving
+the grounds by the gate to the highway, she pulled up perforce and
+jumped back in the nick of time to avoid disaster beneath the wheels
+of a motor-car swinging inward at a reckless pace.
+
+Involuntarily she threw a forearm across her eyes to shield them from
+the blinding glare of the headlamps. In spite of this she was
+recognised and heard Mrs. Gosnold's startled voice crying out: "Miss
+Manwaring! 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 her
+escape, 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 of
+Gosnold House a small but select troupe of strangely various tempers.
+
+Mrs. Gosnold herself led the way, portentous countenance matching well
+her tread of inexorable purpose but in odd contrast to the demure
+frivolity of her Quaker costume.
+
+Sally followed, nervously sullen of bearing toward all save her
+employer.
+
+Mr. Walter Arden Savage came next, but at a respectable distance, a
+very hang-dog Harlequin indeed, a cigarette drooping disconsolately
+from the corner of his mouth.
+
+At the door he stood aside to give precedence to his sister, no longer
+Columbine, but a profoundly distressed and apprehensive blonde person
+in a particularly fetching negligee.
+
+Miss Pride alone wore her accustomed mien--of sprightly
+spinsterhood--unruffled.
+
+Mr. Lyttleton was almost too much at ease; Mr. Mason was
+exceedingly dubious; Mr. Trego was, for him, almost abnormally grave.
+
+This last, bringing up the rear of the procession, closed the hall
+door at a sign from Mrs. Gosnold. The company found seats
+conspicuously apart, with the exception of Mrs. Standish and Savage,
+likewise Mercedes, who stuck to her dear Abigail as per invariable
+custom. Sally, on her part, found an aloof corner where she could
+observe without being conspicuous.
+
+"So," said Mrs. Gosnold, taking her place beside the desk and raking
+the gathering with a forbidding eye. "Now if you will all be good
+enough to humour me without interruption, I have some announcements to
+make, some news to impart, and perhaps a question or two to ask. It's
+late, and I'm tired and short of temper, so you needn't be afraid I
+won't make the proceedings as brief as possible. But there are certain
+matters that must be settled before we go to bed to-night."
+
+She managed a dramatic pause very effectively, and then: "I've been
+kidnapped," 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, of
+course, it was a mistake. They were conventional kidnappers, with not.
+an ounce of originality to bless themselves with, so naturally they
+had meant to kidnap a good-looking youngster--Miss Manwaring, in
+fact."
+
+She nodded vigorous affirmation of the statement. "So I'm told, at
+least; so Walter tells me; and he ought to know; he claims to have
+been the moving spirit in the affair. When he found out his mistake,
+of course, he posted off after me to rectify the hideous error, and
+arrived just in time to effect a dramatic rescue. And then he had to
+confess. . . .
+
+"The whole business," she went on, "from beginning to end, was very
+simple, childishly simple. In fact, ridiculous. And sickening. You're
+not 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 a
+minute, Adele; the car will be ready to take you and Walter to the
+nine-thirty boat to-morrow morning."
+
+There was no answer. The door closed behind Mrs. Standish, and her
+aunt calmly continued:
+
+"It seems that Adele's notorious extravagance got her into hot water
+shortly after she divorced Standish and had only her private means to
+support her insane passion for clothes and ostentation in
+general. She went to money-lenders--usurers, in fact. And, of course,
+that only made it worse. Then Walter, who has never been
+overscrupulous, conceived the brilliant notion of squaring everything
+up for a new start by swindling the burglary-insurance people. Adele
+has always carried heavy insurance on her jewelry--almost the only
+sensible habit she ever contracted. And so they conspired, like the
+two near-sighted idiots they were. . . .
+
+"On the afternoon of the day they were to start for the Island they
+gave all the servants a night off, and contrived to miss connection
+with the Sound steamer. Then they went to the Biltmore for dinner, and
+when it was dark Walter sneaked back home to burglarise the safe. I
+understand he made a very amateurish job of it. Into the bargain, he
+was observed. It seems that the servants had carelessly left the
+scuttle open to the roof, and Miss Manwaring, caught in a
+thunder-storm, had taken shelter in the house--which was quite the
+natural thing, and no blame to her. In addition, a real burglar
+presently jimmied his way in, caught Walter in the act of rifling his
+own safe, and forthwith assaulted him. Walter and the jewels were only
+saved by the intervention of Miss Manwaring, who very bravely pointed
+a pistol at the real burglar's head, and then, having aided Walter to
+turn the tables, ran away. So far, good; Walter booted the
+burglar out of the house, loaded up with the jewels, and left to
+rejoin Adele. But fate would have it that he should meet Miss
+Manwaring again in the Grand Central Station."
+
+She paused for breath, then summed up with an amused smile: "There was
+a most embarrassing contretemps: a broken desk and empty safe at home
+to be accounted for, whether or not they attempted to swindle the
+insurance company; and if they did make the attempt--and remember,
+they were desperate for money--a witness to be taken care of. They
+couldn't let Miss Manwaring go and tell the story of her adventure
+promiscuously, as she had every right to if she chose, for if it got
+to the ears of the insurance people their plot would fail, and they
+were none too sure that they were not liable to be sent to jail for
+conspiracy with intent to defraud. So they cooked up a story to
+account for Miss Manwaring and brought her here, knowing that I had
+recently dismissed Miss Matring. And immediately, as was quite right
+and proper, everything began to go wrong.
+
+"To begin with, the insurance people proved sceptical, largely through
+Walter's stupidity. It seems that certain evidences had been left in
+the house of Miss Manwaring's presence there with what we may call, I
+presume, Walter's permission, the fatal night. The servants who
+discovered the burglary noticed these evidences and mentioned them in
+their telegram. Walter hurried back to New York to hush the servants
+up. He wasn't successful, and the fact that he had endeavoured to
+cover 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 uncommon
+character, less gullible than they had reckoned; also, I may say
+without undue self-conceit, they had underestimated me. I grew
+suspicious, and questioned Miss Manwaring; she was too honest to want
+to lie to me and too sensible to try.
+
+"Meantime the need of money grew daily more urgent. They decided that
+Walter must pawn the jewels in Boston. They could be redeemed piece by
+piece when money was more plentiful. But the jewels were here, and
+Walter in New York, and it would be insane for him to come here and
+get them and then take them to Boston. In his emergency Adele went
+Walter one better in the matter of stupidity. She took Mr. Lyttleton
+into her confidence--and, crowning blunder! took his advice. Mr.
+Lyttleton conceived a magnificently romantic scheme. Walter was to
+come to New Bedford, secretly hire a motor-boat, and be off the
+harbour here at a certain hour of night. Mr. Lyttleton was to
+leave the jewels in a designated spot at the foot of the cliffs. At an
+agreed signal between the yacht and Adele's window Walter was to come
+in, 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 good
+time the next day.
+
+"Walter, notified of this arrangement by letter to New York, fell in
+with it heart and soul. More stupidity, you see. Worse yet, he put it
+into effect. The arrangement was actually carried out last night. And
+again their luck turned against them. It so happened that both Miss
+Manwaring and Mr. Trego were sleepless last night and observed certain
+details of the conspiracy; and to make matters worse, it was the very
+night 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 best
+to be done to avert suspicion from themselves. Miss Manwaring was the
+real stumbling-block. She knew far too much, and had proved rather
+difficult to manage. Among them they evolved another brilliant scheme:
+Miss Manwaring must be kidnapped and hidden away in a safe place until
+the trouble had blown over. Miss Manwaring having ostensibly confessed
+her guilt by flight, suspicion of complicity in the theft would be
+diverted from Walter, Adele, and Lyttleton; though they had
+positively no hand in the thing, they lacked the courage of their
+innocence, and they argued that, when in their own good time they set
+the girl at liberty, she would be wanted by the police and would never
+again dare show her face where it might be recognised. Not only
+stupid, you see, but cold-bloodedly selfish as well.
+
+"Walter undertook to manage the business. He hired a rascally
+chauffeur of his acquaintance and commandeered a closed car from my
+own garage, figuring that the kidnapping would be an accomplished fact
+long before the machine could be wanted, while its absence would never
+arouse comment on a fete night. He then induced Miss Manwaring to
+consent to meet him in a conveniently secluded spot near the gates. I
+overheard something, enough to lead me to suspect there was something
+wrong afoot, and therefore persuaded Miss Manwaring to lend me this
+costume of hers and went to meet Walter in her stead. Before I guessed
+what was up a bag was thrown over my head, my hands and feet were
+bound, and I was lifted into the body of the car and driven away at
+such speed that Walter, who found out his mistake almost immediately,
+was unable to overtake me before I arrived at the spot chosen for Miss
+Manwaring's prison--a deserted shooting-lodge on the South Shore."
+
+"Meantime, when it was found that I had been kidnapped instead of the
+girl, and while Walter was going to fetch me and make what amends he
+could, Adele and Mr. Lyttleton lost their heads entirely. Adele rushed
+round 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 in
+the morning) on his own behalf arranged to direct suspicion of the
+robbery to Miss Manwaring, induced Mr. Mason to exceed my instructions
+and open the envelopes in my absence, and led Mr. Mason to Miss
+Manwaring's room, where, to his own stupendous surprise, there was
+found hidden one of the rings that had been stolen."
+
+"What makes you think he was so much surprised?" Mr. Trego cut in, who
+had turned in his chair to eye Mr. Lyttleton in a most unpleasantly
+truculent fashion.
+
+"Because he didn't know it was there."
+
+"But somebody must have made the plant," Trego argued. "There's no
+question, 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 to
+the 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. I
+have done all I could to protect the thief."
+
+"You know--?" Trego inquired.
+
+"I saw the theft committed," said Mrs. Gosnold. "It was done not for
+gain, but for the sole purpose of securing Miss Manwaring's
+discharge--"
+
+A short, sharp cry interrupted her, and in the momentary silence of
+astonishment that followed Mercedes Pride shut her eyes, sighed
+gently, slipped from her chair, and subsided to the floor in a dead
+faint.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BREAKING JAIL
+
+Within five minutes Sally was back behind the locked door of her
+bedchamber, alone with the glowing exaltation of complete exoneration
+and triumph over the machinations of her ill-wishers, alone with what
+should naturally have been tingling satisfaction in consciousness of
+having administered yet another and (it was to be hoped) a final
+stinging snub to that animal of a Trego.
+
+Yet her gratification in the memory of the latter event was singularly
+vapid, flat, and savourless.
+
+They had been the last to leave the boudoir where, with the help of
+her maid, Mrs. Gosnold was preoccupied with effort to restore her
+kinswoman--that hapless victim of her own malevolence.
+
+The others had been only too glad to disperse, following that
+diversion which freed them from the open contempt of their hostess,
+Sally and Trego. Lyttleton, indeed, had not hesitated to show his
+spirit by taking to his heels down the corridor to his quarters when
+Trego betrayed an inclination to follow him. And it was this
+circumstance 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 suggested
+ominously, "just wait till I catch him outside the house. I knew I did
+wrong to let him off so easy last night. But I'll make up for it, all
+right. 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 for
+myself in my own way. When I desire your interference, I shall notify
+you. Till then--whatever the circumstances--I hope you will be good
+enough 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 as
+much and that she had not said more. He had deserved either the cut
+direct and absolute, or he had deserved a thoroughgoing, whole-hearted
+exposition of his own despicable perfidy.
+
+She could never forgive him--and, what was worse, she could never
+forgive herself for the smart of her wounded pride, when she recalled
+that shameful scene in the garden. She could not forgive herself for
+caring one way or the other. She could not forgive herself for
+admitting that she cared.
+
+It was just this which rendered her position in Gosnold House
+positively untenable, however firmly it might seem to have been
+re-established by the events of the last half-hour.
+
+It was just this which kept the girl from her pillow, buoyed by a
+feverish excitement.
+
+She could never stay at Gosnold House and continue on terms of any
+sort with Trego and suffer the airs with which Mrs. Artemas would
+treat her vanquished rival in the man's affections, even though Sally
+had never been conscious of the rivalry nor in any way encouraged the
+putative prize.
+
+It might seem ungrateful to Mrs. Gosnold; Sally couldn't help that,
+though she was sincerely sorry; the association simply must be
+discontinued.
+
+And that, she declared in her solitude, was all there was about
+it. . . .
+
+By the time she had succeeded in composing a note which seemed
+sufficiently grateful in tone to excuse the pitiful inadequacy of her
+excuse for absconding--that she was "out of her element" on the
+Island, an outsider, a Nobody, and didn't "belong" and never
+could--the chill light of early dawn had rendered the electrics
+garish.
+
+She read the note over with hypercritical sensitiveness to its
+defects, but decided that it must do. Besides, she had used the last
+sheet of note-paper in the rack on her desk; more was not
+obtainable without a trip to the living-room. Then in desperation she
+appended, under the sign of the venerable P. S., a prayer that this
+might prove acceptable in lieu of more gracious leave-taking,
+addressed the envelope to Mrs. Gosnold, and left it sticking
+conspicuously 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 than
+to serve as a cover for the return of everything she wore.
+
+She was determined to go out of this Island world, whose ether was too
+rare 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 the
+figure 6.
+
+She rose, let herself out of the room, and by way of that memorable
+side door issued forth into a morning as rarely beautiful as ever that
+blessed Island knew. It made renunciation doubly difficult. Yet Sally
+did not falter or once look back.
+
+Her way to the village wharf was shortest by the beach. None saw her
+steal through the formal garden (with eyes averted from that one
+marble seat which was forever distinguished from all others in the
+world) and vanish over the lip of the cliff by way of its long, zigzag
+stairway. Few noticed her as she debouched from the beach into
+the village streets; her dress was inconspicuous, her demeanour even
+more than retiring.
+
+Her hope was favoured in that on this earlier trip of the boat there
+were few passengers other than natives of the Island.
+
+On the mainland she caught an accommodation train which wound a
+halting way through the morning and set her down in Providence late in
+the forenoon. Then ignorance of railroad travel made her choose
+another accommodation instead of an express which would have cost no
+more and landed her in New York an hour earlier.
+
+Her flight was financed by a few dollars left over from her bridge
+winnings of the first day at Gosnold House after subsequent losses had
+been paid. Their sum no more than sufficed; when she had purchased a
+meagre lunch at the station counter in New Haven she was penniless
+again; but for the clothes she wore she landed in New York even as she
+had left it.
+
+The city received her with a deafening roar that seemed of exultation
+that its prey had been delivered unto it again.
+
+The heat was even more oppressive than that of the day on which she
+had left--or perhaps seemed so by contrast with the radiant coolness
+of the Island air.
+
+Avoiding Park Avenue, she sought the place that she called home by way
+of Lexington.
+
+She went slowly, wearily, lugging her half-empty hand-hag as if it
+were a heavy burden.
+
+At length, leaving the avenue, she paused a few doors west of the
+corner, 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 been
+torn from the tacks that held it to the panel.
+
+Puzzled and anxious, she stopped and turned up a corner of the worn
+fibre mat--and sighed with relief to find the key in its traditional
+hiding-place.
+
+But when she let herself in, it was to a room tenanted solely by seven
+howling devils of desolation.
+
+Only the decrepit furniture remained; it had not been worth cartage or
+storage; every personal belonging of the other two girls had
+disappeared; 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 less
+indifferently than she had them; one or the other had left a
+newspaper, now three days old, propped up where she could not fail to
+see it on the antiquated marble mantel-shelf. In separate
+columns on the page folded outermost two items were encircled with
+rings of crimson water-colour.
+
+One, under the caption "News of Plays and Players," noted the
+departure for an opening in Atlantic City of the musical comedy
+company of whose chorus Mary Warden was a member.
+
+The other, in the column headed "Marriages," announced tersely the
+nuptials of Lucy Spode and Samuel W. Meyerick. No details were given.
+
+Forlornly Sally wandered to the windows and opened them to exchange
+the 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. She
+selected the least disreputable of two heavy, black winter skirts, a
+shirt-waist badly torn at the collar-band, her severely plain
+under-clothing, coarse black stockings, and shoes that had been
+discarded as not worth another visit to the cobbler's.
+
+When these had been exchanged for the gifts of Mrs. Standish, Sally
+grimly packed the latter into the hand-bag and shut the latch upon
+them with a snap of despair.
+
+Come evening, when it was dark enough, she would leave them at the
+door of the residence up the street, ring the bell, and run.
+
+She sat out a long hour, hands listless in her lap, staring vacantly
+out at that well-hated vista of grimy back yards, drearily reviewing
+the history of the last five days. She felt as one who had dreamed a
+dream and was not yet sure that she had waked.
+
+Later she roused to the call of hunger, and foraged in the larder, or
+what served the studio as such, turning up a broken carton of Uneeda
+Biscuit and half a packet of black tea. There was an egg, but she
+prudently refrained from testing it. . . .
+
+It never entered her weary head to imagine that the feet that pounded
+heavily on the stairs were those of anybody but the janitor; she was
+wondering idly whether there were rent due, and if she would be turned
+out into the street that very night; and was thinking it did not much
+matter, when the footfalls stopped on the threshold of the studio and
+she looked up into the face of Mr. Trego.
+
+Surprise and indignation smote her with speechlessness, but her eyes
+were eloquent enough as she started up--and almost overturned the
+rickety table at which she had been dining.
+
+But he was crassly oblivious of her emotion. Removing his hat, he
+mopped his brow, sighed, and smiled winningly.
+
+"Hello!" he said. "You certainly did give me a deuce of a hunt. I
+wormed it out of Mrs. Gosnold that you inhabited a studio somewhere on
+this block, and I suppose I must have climbed thirty times three
+flights 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, I
+would have come anyway. I told you last night that I loved you. I
+haven't changed since then. And now that you're in a fix, whether or
+not of your own contriving--well, it isn't my notion of love to let
+you pull out for yourself if you'll let me help. And that goes, even
+if you stick to it that you won't marry me."
+
+"And Mrs. Artemas?" she inquired icily. "What does she think about
+your coming after me?"
+
+He stared and laughed. "Oh, did you know about that? I hoped you
+didn't."
+
+"I saw you with her in your arms."
+
+"Yes," he agreed patiently. "She'd been laying for me for several
+weeks. I told you she was--don't you remember? Only, of course, I
+didn't name her. And last night, when I went back there looking for
+you, she cornered me; and while I was trying to be nice and explain I
+could never be anything more than a brother to her she began to
+blubber and threw herself into my arms and . . . What could a fellow
+do? I tried to make her behave, but before she would listen to reason
+those confounded people had to pop up. And, of course, she took
+advantage of that opening instanter. But--great Scott!--you
+didn't suppose I was going to be that sort of a gentleman and let her
+get away with it, did you? when I am so much in love with you I can
+hardly keep from grabbing you now! Not likely!"
+
+She tried to answer him, but her traitorous voice broke, and before
+she could master it he had resumed.
+
+"Mrs. Gosnold wants you back--sent me to say so--says she'll come
+after 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 a
+new deal from a fresh deck, so to speak."
+
+"No," she averred more steadily. "You told me I was foolish; you were
+right. I'm through with all that."
+
+He came closer to her. "You needn't be," he said. "Don't damn Society
+just because you got in wrong at the first attempt. Try again. Let me
+try with you. I've got all the money there is, more or less. If you
+want 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't
+there any more apartments to be had on Riverside Drive?"
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+Popular Copyright Novels
+
+AT MODERATE PRICES
+
+Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular
+Copyright Fiction
+
+Abner Daniel                   _Will N. Harben_
+
+Adventures of Gerard           _A. Conan Doyle_
+
+Adventures of a Modest Man     _R. W. Chambers_
+
+Adventures of Sherlock Holmes  _A. Conan Doyle_
+
+After House, The               _Mary Roberts Rinehart_
+
+Ailsa Paige                    _Robert W. Chambers_
+
+Alternative, The               _George Barr McCutcheon_
+
+Alton of Somasco               _Harold Bindloss_
+
+Amateur Gentleman, The         _Jeffery Farnol_
+
+Andrew The Glad                _Maria Thompson Daviess_
+
+Ann Boyd                       _Will N. Harben_
+
+Annals of Ann, The             _Kate T. Sharber_
+
+Anna the Adventuress           _E. Phillips Oppenheim_
+
+Armchair at the Inn, The       _F. Hopkinson Smith_
+
+Ariadne of Allan Water         _Sidney McCall_
+
+At the Age of Eve              _Kate T. Sharber_
+
+At the Mercy of Tiberius       _Augusta Evans Wilson_
+
+Auction Block, The             _Rex Beach_
+
+Aunt Jane of Kentucky          _Eliza C. Hall_
+
+Awakening of Helena Ritchie    _Margaret Deland_
+
+Bambi                          _Marjorie Benton Cooke_
+
+Bandbox, The                   _Louis Joseph Vance_
+
+Barbara of the Snows           _Harry Irving Green_
+
+Bar 20                         _Clarence E. Mulford_
+
+Bar 20 Days                    _Clarence E. Mulford_
+
+Barrier, The                   _Rex Beach_
+
+Beasts of Tarzan, The          _Edgar Rice Burroughs_
+
+Beechy                         _Bettina Von Hutten_
+
+Bella Donna                    _Robert Hichens_
+
+Beloved Vagabond, The          _Wm. J. Locke_
+
+Ben Blair                      _Will Lillibridge_
+
+Beth Norvell                   _Randall Parrish_
+
+Betrayal, The                  _E. Phillips Oppenheim_
+
+Better Man, The                _Cyrus Townsend Brady_
+
+Beulah (Ill. Ed)               _Augusta J. Evans_
+
+Black Is White                 _George Barr McCutcheon_
+
+Blaze Derringer                _Eugene P. Lyle, Jr._
+
+Bob Hampton of Placer          _Randall Parrish_
+
+Bob, Son of Battle             _Alfred Ollivant_
+
+Brass Bowl, The                _Louis Joseph Vance_
+
+Britton of the Seventh         _Cyrus Townsend Brady_
+
+Broad Highway, The             _Jeffery Farnol_
+
+Bronze Bell, The               _Louis Joseph Vance_
+
+Buck Peters, Ranchman          _Clarence B. Mulford_
+
+Business of Life, The          _Robert W. Chambers_
+
+Butterfly Man, The             _George Barr McCutcheon_
+
+By Right of Purchase           _Harold Bindloss_
+
+Cabbages and Kings             _O. Henry_
+
+Cab No. 44                     _R. F. Foster_
+
+Calling of Dan Matthews, The   _Harold Bell Wright_
+
+Cape Cod Stories               _Joseph C. Lincoln_
+
+Cap'n Eri                      _Joseph C. Lincoln_
+
+Cap'n Warren's Wards           _Joseph C. Lincoln_
+
+Caravaners               _Author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden_
+
+Cardigan                       _Robert W. Chambers_
+
+Carmen                         _(Geraldine Farrar Edition)_
+
+Carpet From Bagdad, The        _Harold MacGrath_
+
+Cash Intrigue, The             _George Randolph Chester_
+
+Castle by the Sea, The         _H. B. M. Watson_
+
+Claw, The                      _Cynthia Stockley_
+
+C. O. D.                       _Natalie Sumner Lincoln_
+
+Colonial Free Lance, A         _Chauncey O. Hotchkiss_
+
+Coming of the Law, The         _Chas. A. Seltzer_
+
+Conquest of Canaan, The        _Booth Tarkingtcn_
+
+Conspirators, The              _Robert W. Chambers_
+
+Counsel for the Defense        _Leroy Scott_
+
+Crime Doctor, The              _E. W. Hornung_
+
+Cry In the Wilderness, A       _Mary B. Waller_
+
+Cynthia of the Minute          _Louis Joseph Vance_
+
+Dark Hollow, The               _Anna Katharine Green_
+
+Dave's Daughter                _Patience Bevier Cole_
+
+Day of Days, The               _Louis Joseph Vance_
+
+Day of the Dog, The            _George Barr McCutcheon_
+
+Depot Master, The              _Joseph C. Lincoln_
+
+Desired Woman, The             _Will N. Harben_
+
+Destroying Angel, The          _Louis Joseph Vance_
+
+Diamond Master, The            _Jacques Futrelle_
+
+Dixie Hart                     _Will N. Harben_
+
+El Dorado                      _Baroness Orczy_
+
+Elusive Isabel                 _Jacques Futrelle_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nobody, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOBODY ***
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