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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57138 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
+
+  RAMSHACKLE HOUSE
+
+  BY
+
+  HULBERT FOOTNER
+
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1922,
+  BY HULBERT FOOTNER
+
+
+
+  RAMSHACKLE HOUSE. I
+
+  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER
+
+  I The Canoeist
+  II The Story in the Sun-Paper
+  III An Irruption from the World
+  IV Beside the Little Temple
+  V On Board the _Alexandra_
+  VI Moonlight
+  VII The Trip to Town
+  VIII The Return
+  IX The Night Long
+  X Days of Suspense
+  XI Pen's Hand is Forced
+  XII The _Alexandra_ Sails Away
+  XIII In Chambers
+  XIV Extra!
+  XV Postscript
+
+
+
+
+RAMSHACKLE HOUSE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CANOEIST
+
+Broome's Point proper is a crescent-shaped spit of sand separating the
+mouth of the Pocomico River from the waters of Chesapeake Bay.  The end
+of the spit is decorated with one of those odd structures that our
+lighthouse service is so partial to, an octagonal house mounted on
+spreading, spindly piles, the whole looking uncommonly like a spider.
+The Broome estate comprises all the high ground back of the spit for
+upwards of four miles up the bay shore and a mile along the river.  The
+mansion stands proudly on a bold bluff overlooking the river mouth.  It
+is one of those square packing-boxes with a "cupalow" so popular with
+the builders of the sixties.  It has never been painted since the first
+time and its once white face is streaked with rust from the gutters
+like the marks left by tears on dirty cheeks.  One of the snuggest
+anchorages on the coast is under the bank upon which it stands.  The
+river mouth itself forms a great basin three miles across in which all
+the navies of the world might ride.  One shore of it is as wild and
+deserted as the other.  A mile or so up the river lies Absolom's Island
+with its oystering village, connected with the hinterland by a causeway.
+
+On Decoration Day there was a battle-ship lying in the river.  As Pen
+Broome flew in and out of the big house upon her interminable chores
+she had a distant view of the holiday crowds on the green common of the
+Island.  Black and white splotches represented the game of ball that
+was going on between the island boys and the sailors and black dots
+stood for the automobiles of week-end trippers from the great world.
+Later Pen knew there had been a church supper under the big linden
+trees alongside the parsonage, and at night a dance up the county.
+Ordinarily Pen was not given to resenting her lot; she was too busy.
+She had no personal interest in sailors nor in the island boys, and
+very little in the county people, her own sort.  But to-day the
+spectacle of holiday-making brought an unbearable gnawing to her
+breast.  She was twenty-four.
+
+Pen was no tame and pathetic figure.  She was the sort of youngster
+that is made savage by pain.  Consequently next morning there was
+thunder in the air at Broome's Point.  Pen's storms were rare and
+rather terrible.  They cleared the air wonderfully.  Perhaps it would
+have been better for that slack household if they had broken oftener.
+Black Aunt Maria Garner seeing her mistress' face, rolled the whites of
+her eyes apprehensively, and propelled her unwieldy bulk about the
+kitchen with a surprising celerity.  She said cooingly:
+
+"Honey, Ah'm gwine beat yo' up nice li'l cheese soufflé fo' yo' lunch!"
+
+"Go along with you, Aunt Maria!" cried Pen with an exasperated laugh.
+"I'm not going to be taken in with your cheese soufflés!  If you want
+to please me get your work done!  Look at this kitchen!"
+
+"'Deed honey, Ah done come at sun-up this mawnin'.  Deed I doggone
+swear did I!"
+
+"What good is your coming at sun-up or sun-down if you only rock your
+fat body on a chair and smoke that filthy pipe!"
+
+"Miss Penny, honey, I got the mos' awfulles' misehy...."
+
+"That's enough of your misery.  When I came in that door you started to
+move as spry as a kitten after its tail!"
+
+At this moment the head of Theodo', Aunt Maria's sixth or thereabouts,
+appeared outside the kitchen window.  Aunt Maria unseen by Pen silently
+and frantically waved him back, but his momentum was too great.  He
+came on in with his foolish, engaging grin.
+
+Pen whirled around.
+
+"What are you doing in the house at this hour?" she demanded.
+
+Theodo's face turned ashy, but he still grinned.  "Ah ... Ah jes' come
+fo' watah," he stammered.
+
+"And left your horses standing in the field!" stormed Pen.  "You don't
+want water.  It's only because you can't keep your trifling mind on
+your work for more than half an hour at a time.  To-morrow is the first
+of June and you haven't got your ploughing done!  And everybody else's
+corn is six inches high! Go back to your horses and let me hear no more
+of water!"
+
+Theodo' slunk out.
+
+But the storm did not really break until Pen, going to make her butter,
+found the broken paddle of her churn still unmended.  She marched back
+through the kitchen, through the big pantry into the dining-room
+bearing the broken paddle like Nemesis.  Aunt Maria's vast body heaved
+in silent chuckles.
+
+"Boss gwine catch it now fo' sho'," she murmured, and waddling silently
+through the pantry, put her ear to the crack of the dining-room door.
+
+She was not disappointed.  Within the dining-room lightning played
+about the startled head of the elder Pendleton Broome.  And indeed
+young Pen was sorely tried.  Her father was an amiable incompetent who
+frittered away his time on a dozen unprofitable hobbies while his
+estate fell into ruin about him.  Not his fault entirely of course, for
+it was a hopeless job to keep up twenty-five hundred acres without any
+money.  And not an acre of it salable.  To get the smallest things done
+about the place required an expenditure of energy from Pen sufficient
+to have won campaigns.  For weeks her father had been promising to mend
+her churn.  Even with a whole churn she made butter under the greatest
+difficulties, because by the time he had got round to repairing the ice
+house it was too late to put up ice.  She reminded him of that now ...
+and of other things.
+
+Pendleton Broome essayed to pull the rags of his dignity about him ...
+without much success.  He was one of these half-hearted little
+corpulent men, partly bald, an odd and pathetic figure in his old
+clothes with an air of breeding still upon him.  Often when she was
+abusing him the tears would suddenly spring into Pen's eyes.
+
+"But my dear, I can't keep my mind on butter!" he protested.
+
+"If I didn't keep my mind on butter we'd all starve!" stormed Pen.
+
+"I intended to mend the churn," he explained, "but in Friday's
+_Sun_-paper, as you know, another correspondent undertook to refute the
+arguments in my letter on the Mendelian theory.  And in answering him I
+clean forgot about the churn!"
+
+"The Mendelian theory!" cried Pen.  "Will that feed us?"  Her voice
+went off into wild inextinguishable laughter.  The little man stared at
+her with an affronted air.  Pen suddenly turned and flew out through
+the hall and across the porch.  Her storms generally ended in this way,
+in tears.  Nobody ever saw her cry though.
+
+Running like a sand-piper she skimmed across the weedy lawn, threaded
+the bordering shrubbery and ducked through a gap in the palings.  She
+ran along the edge of a little field behind the empty and ruinous
+tenant cottage, and into the woods by a faint path worn by her own feet
+and no other's.  Two hundred yards within the woods she came out in a
+little clearing upon a bench of land overlooking a pond densely hemmed
+round by the woods, like a deep green bowl with brown water in the
+bottom.  Here she cast herself down.
+
+The clearing contained, a strange sight in those rude surroundings, a
+little Doric temple dating from the eighteenth century.  It was just a
+circle of plain columns holding up a little flattish dome, the marble
+all silvery with lichen, and wistfully beautiful against the greenery.
+Within the columns open to the winds was a raised grave of the period
+built of brick and topped with a marble slab carved with the Broome
+arms and with an inscription setting forth the virtues of a Pendleton
+Broome who died in 1720 at the age of twenty-three.
+
+This spot no doubt because of its disquieting beauty had long ago
+acquired a bad name in the neighborhood.  It had been avoided by so
+many generations as to have become almost completely forgotten.  Those
+of the natives who knew of it would not have ventured near under any
+circumstances.  Pen herself had stumbled on the place by accident years
+before and had made it her own.  With her own childish hands she had
+cleared out the undergrowth, and from time to time had planted ferns,
+"ivory", violets and the moccasin flower until in the spring it was
+like a flower-bedecked chancel with her young kinsman lying in state in
+the center of it.
+
+Pen looked upon the long dead youth as the brother she had never had in
+the flesh.  Once she had looked up to him as her big brother, but
+lately he had become most lovably her junior, for he remained
+imperishably twenty-three.  Not especially imaginative she nevertheless
+pictured him vividly in a plum-colored velvet suit with a flare to the
+skirt of his coat, Mechlin lace at his wrists and throat, sword at side
+and tricorn hat, his chestnut curls tied with a black moire ribbon.
+The Broomes were a bright-haired, blue-eyed race; Pen had brought black
+hair into the family from her mother's side.  She pictured the earlier
+Pen mixing with the wits of his day with a bit of a swagger.  According
+to family tradition he had died in London, and his body was shipped
+home to his inconsolable parents preserved in a cask of brandy.  The
+stones of his little temple must have been brought from England too, in
+the tobacco ships.  How dearly that Pen must have been loved, this Pen
+thought, and loved him the better for it.
+
+She cast herself down beside his grave and unpacked her heart.  The
+real source of her pain had nothing to do with broken butter paddles of
+course.
+
+"Turkeys and chickens and ducks!  Ducks and turkeys and chickens!
+Making butter three times a week and canning all summer!  Is that all
+there is to live for as long as I live? ... Ah my dear, my dear, if I
+had you really!  Someone young to be with! ... But I'm shriveling up
+alone!"
+
+But the place quieted her as it always did.  She became silent.  Bye
+and bye she turned her head sideways on her arm and looked down at the
+brown pond almost dusty in the sunshine and thought of nothing at all.
+Her face smoothed out.  Pen's cheeks were not smooth like a doll's but
+had faint hollows of emotion that strangely stirred a man's breast.
+Nor was she of brittle build like a city maiden.  Lying prone on the
+earth like that, in her full soft curves she symbolized the morning of
+earth.
+
+This place was on the other side of the point.  Across the pond from
+where Pen lay, only a few hundred yards away, was the bay with its
+steamships passing up and down, but all hidden from her by the
+intervening greenery.  A winding creeklet flowed in with the flood and
+out with the ebb.  At low tide it lost itself in the sand of the beach
+outside.  Nobody but Pen ever came near the spot.  Year after year a
+white heron nested under a tangle of vines that hung in the water, and
+in the spring the great shad came flopping clumsily through three
+inches of water to spawn inside.  Pen saw the white heron with a
+cautious preliminary look around, enter the thicket that concealed her
+nest, and watched lazily for her to reappear.  With every breath the
+girl was unconsciously drawing comfort from the earth upon which she
+lay.
+
+Finally she sat up with a sigh and patted her hair into place.  Her
+"sensible" look returned; a wry smile appeared about her lips.  "You
+fool!" she said to herself.  "Wasting the best hours of the day!  When
+you get back even if the paddle is mended it will be too hot to churn!
+And by night the cream will be too sour!"
+
+She arose with a shake of her skirts and walked sedately and somewhat
+self-consciously back to the house, though there was none to see her.
+As soon as she came out from the woods the blue expanse of the river
+mouth was spread before her with the gray battle-ship lying out in
+mid-stream and off to the right Absolom's Island with its row of white
+cottages.  She ducked through the fence and picked her way around the
+tangled shrubs.  When she came out from under the mimosa tree she was
+greatly astonished to see a strange man sitting on the porch beside her
+father.  Another step and she saw that he was young; one more step
+showed him to be uncommonly good-looking.  Pen stopped dead in her
+tracks.  Sternly repressing the impulse to run, she stiffened her back
+and putting on a haughty expression, marched on to meet the enemy.
+
+The hardest thing she had to do was to mount the porch.  For the steps
+had rotted away and Pen's father had put down a little box and a big
+box to climb up on "until he got around to fixing the steps."  The
+boxes had been there for two years now.  Somebody had gone through the
+top of the little box and an old piece of board had been laid across it.
+
+The young man was a tall fellow; bright-haired, ruddy and smiling, with
+beautiful white teeth.  He was wearing white flannel trousers of fine
+quality rather soiled and a snowy shirt cut off at the elbows and open
+to reveal a smooth brown throat.  Pen was taken by surprise.  Something
+about him, the strong bare neck like a column, the laughing eyes that
+had yet a sort of hunger in them too, turned her suddenly giddy.  She
+was furious at her own weakness--and at him for being the cause of it.
+If in that moment he had said: "Come!" and had walked off with a curt
+jerk of the head, she would have had to follow.  It was the secret
+consciousness of this that appalled her.
+
+Fortunately for her he was civilized.  He merely smiled as a gentleman
+may in frank admiration--but not too frank.  He was clearly what Pen
+called a gentleman.  The thought was balm to her soul.  For if he had
+not been she knew it would have been just the same with her.  The first
+gentleman she had seen in so many months!  It was comforting to be
+assured that they still walked the earth.
+
+As in a dream she heard her father saying: "Mr. Donald Counsell ... my
+daughter.  Her name is Pendleton Broome the same as my own.  It is a
+family custom."
+
+She heard the young man apologizing for his appearance.  "I never
+expected to..."
+
+Pen caught him up sharply.  "Find white people here?  You wouldn't.
+From the look of the place."
+
+Both men were disconcerted by her brusqueness.  Pen was horribly
+ashamed of herself.  "I will not blush! ... I will not blush!" she said
+to herself, glaring out across the river.  After the first glance she
+never looked at the young man again, but was nevertheless tinglingly
+conscious of his aspect; the fine lines of his body, his fair tanned
+skin, and always of those merry, speaking, wistful eyes.  "What has
+happened to me? ... What has happened to me?" a little voice within her
+seemed to be wailing.
+
+The young man tried to smooth things over.  "What a heavenly spot!  As
+I have already told your father, I'm loafing down the Bay in a canoe."
+
+"What do you do when the wind blows?" asked the elder Pendleton.
+
+"Oh, go ashore and sit and smoke by my fire."
+
+"Don't you get lonely?"
+
+A shadow crossed the young man's open countenance.  "No, I'm fed up
+with people," he said shortly.  "... That is, city people," he added
+with a glance through his lashes at Pen.
+
+A sudden flame of jealousy burned Pen's breast.  "There have been many
+women in his life!"  And immediately: "Oh, what a fool I am!" she
+promptly added.
+
+Pendleton glanced admonishingly at his daughter.  Where was the
+courtesy to strangers for which the Broomes were famous?  The glance
+was wasted upon Pen.  An awkward silence resulted.
+
+Finally the young man said politely: "I came to see if I could get some
+butter and eggs."
+
+"Certainly," said Pen stiffly.  "Eggs are twenty cents a dozen, butter
+forty cents the pound."
+
+She bit her tongue as soon as it was out, but could not have helped
+herself.  Some power stronger than her will forced her to put her worst
+foot foremost.  Pendleton père was frankly shocked, but the young man
+was not put out at all.  He grinned at her delightfully and murmured
+too low for her father to hear:
+
+"Cheap at half the price!"
+
+It did not help Pen any.  "He's laughing at me!" she said to herself in
+a rage.  "Thinks he can have me at his own price! ... He'll see!"
+
+Pendleton coughed behind his hand as a direct reminder to Pen of the
+time-honored hospitality of their house.  Pen didn't get it.  The
+effort to master her inexplicable emotions made her look almost stupid.
+In the end Pendleton himself was obliged to say:
+
+"You will have dinner with us?"
+
+Counsell's face lighted up.  "You are very kind, but..."  He looked at
+Pen again.
+
+"We'll be very pleased to have you," Pen said as primly as a
+school-marm, and despising herself for it.  Why couldn't she be natural?
+
+"Well, thanks, I will," Counsell said heartily.  "After three days in
+camp a square meal will be a god-send!  I may say I'm no great shakes
+of a cook."
+
+Pen's breast warmed at the thought of feeding the youth.  "Dinner" had
+the effect of recalling her scattered faculties.  Her mind flew to the
+question: What is there? ... The ham-bone? ... Impossible! ... Stuffed
+eggs ... lettuce ... radishes ... strawberries.  There is that bottle
+of my three year old grape wine...  Not enough for a hungry man.  He's
+so vigorous! ... If I could put it off until half-past one I might get
+the boys to catch me some soft crabs ... No, the tide is too high! ...
+I have it!  The cheese soufflé!"
+
+Excusing herself she went into the house to get her preparations under
+way.  In the hall she came to a dead stop with her arms hanging limply,
+and looked into the future with a sort of horror.  Her thought was:
+"I'm a goner! ... I have lost myself ... lost ...!"  She pulled herself
+together with a jerk and flew into the kitchen, where for the next half
+hour things hummed.  Aunt Maria Garner loved to cook for company.
+
+Later, Pen having changed her dress, was setting the table.  Through
+the open window she could hear her father retailing the Broome family
+history in the slightly throaty voice of self-importance.  Pen knew his
+tale by heart.
+
+"... Settled here since 1710 ... 2500 acres ... the estate runs four
+miles up the Bay shore....  The first house built here was a fine
+Colonial mansion with a pillared portico.  Burned by the British on
+their expedition against Washington in the 1812 affair.  A comfortable
+farmhouse with great chimneys arose out of its ruins.  The present
+structure was erected in 1869.  This was the style then, a great square
+block with a cupola.  Considered magnificent in its day.  Very fine
+rooms.  You'll see them presently.  It contains the oldest bath-room in
+Southern Maryland.  Unfortunately out of order at present.
+
+"This house was built by my father on his return from Peru.  He was a
+man of resource.  When everybody hereabouts was ruined by the war he
+emigrated to South America.  Got in with the right people in Peru and
+made a great fortune in a year or two.  Invested it in Peruvian bonds.
+He returned and laid out the old family place on a princely scale,
+princely.  Laid out twenty miles of roads through the woods for his
+guests to take horse exercise.  At one time he had five hundred
+employees on the place white and black.  How well I remember as a child
+when the family departed for Newport where my father had another place,
+they would all be lined up to say good-by in a double row extending far
+beyond the gate.  We would walk between and my father would shake hands
+with each one and say a few kind words.  There was scarcely a dry eye
+among them!"
+
+Pen, listening to this innocent tale, felt her cheeks burn.
+
+Pendleton concluded with a sigh: "Unfortunately there was a revolution
+in Peru.  The dastardly cutthroats who seized the reins of government
+repudiated the obligations of their country."
+
+"In other words the bonds were N.G.," murmured Counsell.
+
+"Exactly.  My father's fortune was swept away overnight.  Since then it
+has been a struggle.  Too much land and too little money.  But I look
+for better times ... better times."
+
+Counsell asked a question.
+
+"The railway," Pendleton answered with an air.  "The Broome's Point
+railway.  It will terminate in that gully down to the right there.  It
+was first projected forty years ago, the right of way all graded and
+the trestles built ready for the rails.  Unfortunately there was
+chicanery somewhere; construction was held up.  Since then the
+enterprise has been revived from time to time, but something has always
+happened.  But it will, it must come some day.  I am bringing influence
+to bear.  I have made liberal offers of land to the promoters.  That is
+the finest harbor on the coast that lies before you.  Baltimore is
+jealous.  Powerful interests were brought to bear against the project
+the last time it was started.  Trumped-up charges laid against the
+promoter."
+
+"What happened to him?" asked Counsell.
+
+"Well, he's in jail at present," said Pendleton ruefully.  "But he will
+come out with flying colors.  He enjoys my entire confidence.  He
+explained everything to me.  The railway must come before long.  My
+place is all laid out in town lots."
+
+Pen gritted her teeth.  She could picture the worldly-wise young man
+laughing at her foolish little father from behind his grave face.
+
+She called them into lunch.  She was painfully conscious of the
+discrepancies of her house, but as a matter of fact Counsell was
+astonished when he entered.  Pen had full control within the house and
+the squalor was left out of doors.  The furniture, what there was left
+of it, dated from the same ugly period as the house, but there were
+certain touches; the lofty rooms were cool, inviting, full of charm.
+Poor as the Broomes were one could never mistake it for other than a
+lady's house.  Particularly the dining-room with its velvety smooth
+walnut table, the hand-made mats, the dull old silver, the flowers, the
+delicious looking food.
+
+"Oh! but I'm hungry!" Counsell said involuntarily, showing all his
+white teeth.
+
+Glancing at Pen he found her eyes obstinately hidden, but she betrayed
+a dimple.
+
+Not until she heard Counsell pick up his knife and fork did she venture
+to look at him.  She had been waiting for the moment when his attention
+would be distracted by food.  The smooth turn of his ruddy cheek and
+his long, curved lashes hurt her with delight.  There was something
+affectingly boyish about him for all his strength and his assured air.
+Pen yearned to mother that shining head against her breast.  She never
+looked at him but the once, yet she was aware of every mouthful he
+took, and every mouthful gave her satisfaction.
+
+Pendleton Broome opened his eyes rather at the spread.  The glance of
+reproof that he sent across to Pen suggested that while hospitality was
+the first law of the Broomes, still there should be reason in all
+things.  From that moment with true male consistency he began to cool
+towards their young guest.
+
+Nevertheless, charmed to have a sophisticated listener, he aired all
+his quaint and impractical theories.  He dabbled in chemistry amongst
+other things, and had a great store of pseudo-scientific patter.
+Counsell listened politely and made the suitable rejoinders, but never
+lost an opportunity of trying to draw Pen into the talk.  Pen,
+resisting his efforts, was nevertheless secretly delighted with his
+adroitness.  It made her realize how she had been hungering for the
+graces of intercourse.
+
+Once Counsell asked her directly: "Do you know New York?"
+
+"I went to school there."  She named a famous finishing school.
+
+Counsell could not but look his surprise.
+
+"I had a legacy," said Pen demurely.  Her father frowned.
+
+"Then you know people in New York?" Counsell said eagerly.
+
+She shook her head.  "I have not kept up with the girls."
+
+"She deliberately dropped them!" her father put in with an aggrieved
+air.  "It is the infernal Broome pride.  She was most popular in
+school."
+
+Pen laughed lightly.  "Northerners are different," she said.  "They
+don't make a merit of their departed glories."
+
+It was her way of letting Counsell know, without being disloyal to her
+father, that she did not share in her elder's delusions.  The young man
+looked at her in a new way.  It was the first inkling of her real
+nature that she had given him.  Pen felt his look through and through
+her.
+
+Pendleton took advantage of the pause to secure the floor again, and
+held it for some time.  But he had to eat too, and as soon as he
+stopped talking to chew, Counsell turned to Pen.
+
+"Isn't it rather lonely here?"
+
+"Mercy, no!" laughed Pen.  "Far too much to do!"
+
+"I suppose there are lots of agreeable people in the neighborhood?"
+
+"Up the county, oh yes," said Pen.
+
+"And you have all sorts of jolly parties?"
+
+"They do," said Pen briefly.
+
+"Not you?"
+
+Pen explained.  "The road from here up the Neck that connects us with
+the world has become impassable for motors, even if we had one.  Even a
+buggy can scarcely get through now.  By road it's twelve miles to the
+nearest white man's house.  Excepting the squatters.  Our only way of
+communication is by motor-boat with the Island.  Our friends do not
+live on the Island.  And we've no way of getting up the county."
+
+"Have you no white neighbors at all?" he asked aghast.
+
+"Old Mr. Weems Locket who keeps the lighthouse."
+
+"No white woman near?"
+
+Pen shrugged.  "No special hardship in that.  I like men just as well
+as women."
+
+"Nobody but the light-keeper?"
+
+"Oh yes, in bad weather the bug-eyes and the pungy-boats lie under our
+bank and the skippers come ashore to call on father and use the
+telephone."
+
+"In winter it must be hard."
+
+"Oh things are never really as bad as they seem to one who doesn't know
+them."
+
+Just the same his sympathetic voice drew something out of her.  For the
+first time she gave him her eyes freely.  Wonderful dark, glowing eyes
+that won something of him that he never got back again.  Her laughing,
+somber glance said as plainly as if the words had been spoken: "The
+winter here is Hell!"  His eyes laughed back in hers, surrendering, and
+for an instant they were one.
+
+This brief interchange was terribly sweet to Pen; so sweet that it
+scared her.  For some time afterwards she was quite stiff with him, and
+his eyes reproached her.
+
+When they left the table and went out on the porch Counsell made a
+deliberate move to separate her from her prosy father.  With all his
+politeness the young man had a resolute air.
+
+"I think this is simply the finest site for a house that I have ever
+seen," he said to Pen.  "Let's walk out and look over the edge of the
+bank."
+
+Pen's heart leaped--then sank again, remembering the morning's work
+still undone, and the afternoon's work all to do.  Pendleton looked
+injured, but as no one paid the slightest attention to him he made
+believe to recollect something important that he had to do, and went
+into the house.  Pen pleaded with her sterner self: "Just for a few
+minutes!"  Meanwhile she was being firmly urged towards the boxes.
+Before she was aware of having given in, she found herself well on the
+way.
+
+They strolled across the neglected lawn, matted with horse-mint, too
+spicy a vegetable to the taste of the stock that wandered over the
+place.  The drive once paved with shell, made a wide circular sweep in
+front of the house, but the shell had disappeared under the horse-mint
+too.  Part of the old bed enclosed within the drive Pen had dug up and
+put in a few dahlias.  These she had essayed to protect from the horses
+and cows and sheep by a miscellaneous barricade of boxes and boards.
+She blushed for it now.  She couldn't explain to him that she had an
+instinct for flowers that had to find some outlet.
+
+The earthen bank was sixty feet high.  In the days of the place's glory
+an ingenious gardener had planted honeysuckle at the base to keep it
+from washing and now the tangled vines swept all the way up to their
+feet in a bottle green wave flecked with the foam of its pale blossoms.
+The scent of it was dangerously enervating to youth.
+
+"The whole world down here is full of honeysuckle," murmured Don.  "In
+the evening you can smell it far out in the Bay."
+
+An ineffably lovely panorama was spread before them, which the light
+haze customary to that soft land, endowed with a curiously moving
+quality.  For awhile in silence their eyes ranged back and forth from
+Absolom's Island on the one side out over the intenser blue of the Bay.
+At their feet rode a battered old schooner with a deckload of cord
+wood.  Down at the left the octagonal lighthouse on its spindly legs
+was just within range of their vision.
+
+"My camp is down there," said Don.  "On the other side of the old
+wharf.  The curve in the beach hides it."
+
+They sat down with their feet hanging over the edge.  Pen's conscience
+was protesting more faintly now.  She had recovered from her surprise
+attack and had her forces pretty well in hand.  She found she was all
+right if she avoided looking at him.  There was something leaping out
+of his eyes that simply confounded her.  They talked about anything and
+nothing.  He wanted to make her talk, whereas she desired to hear him.
+So they fenced.  The little undertones of bitterness, of self-mockery,
+in Pen's laughter struck powerfully on the man's imagination.  It
+appeared that this girl most decidedly had a flavor of her own.
+
+He was reluctant to talk about himself and Pen could not ask questions.
+Consequently her hungry ears were obliged to pounce on the implications
+of his talk for information.  He was of the great world it appeared.
+He knew everybody.  He was not a mere philistine.  He knew books,
+pictures, music; all that Pen thirsted for; and the people who made
+such things were among his friends.  "Though I'm only a common
+stockbroker," he put in with a laugh.  This pleased Pen.  She thought:
+"I wouldn't want an artist for a lover"--and blushed for the thought.
+He was exactly what she wished him to be.  It seemed to her magical
+that such a one should have been brought into her life if only for an
+hour or two.  Only for an hour or two!  She kept telling herself that
+firmly.  "He'll be gone to-morrow and I wishing he had never come!"
+That was the explanation of the bitterness.
+
+She did ask him one question.  "How on earth did you come to stray down
+here?"
+
+He said: "I read somewhere, years ago, what a lovely and little known
+country there was on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay ... I keep a
+canoe and a little tent handy in a club-house in New York.  Whenever
+the world is too much with me I just paddle off for a few days."
+
+Pen's few minutes lengthened out into an hour and she had simply not
+the strength to send him away.  In the end her father was seen
+approaching, his discolored straw hat placed just so, a jute bag over
+his arm.
+
+"I'm going over to the Island to get the mail," he said to Counsell in
+an offhand tone.  "Like to come along?  It's considered very
+picturesque."
+
+Counsell looked at Pen in indecision.  He most assuredly did not want
+to go, but perhaps the best way to make headway with the girl was to be
+agreeable to the old man.  You couldn't always tell.
+
+"Won't you come too?" he asked.
+
+Pen shook her head.  "I've a hundred things to do."
+
+"Couldn't I help?" he asked eagerly.
+
+Pen laughed clearly.  "Heavens! what do you know about turkey chicks?
+Or making butter and cleaning house?"
+
+He still hesitated.
+
+Pen arose briskly.  "Run along," she commanded.  "When you come back
+perhaps you'll stay to supper."  She had not intended to ask him.  It
+was surprised out of her.  It surprised her father too.  "Was that
+necessary?" his elevated eyebrows asked.  He did not like this young
+man as well as he had in the beginning.
+
+Counsell blushed red with pleasure.  "That is kind," he said.
+
+"Then mind you're back in time," said Pen, leaving them.  "You never
+can tell about the engine in our boat."
+
+She flew about her work.  The butter got itself made, and the eggs
+collected.  Sundry small chicks were treated for the gaps, and the far
+wandering turkeys rounded up.  Preparations were set on foot for a real
+Southern Maryland supper; soft crabs, fried chicken, hot biscuits,
+strawberry shortcake.  If Pen had had her way she would have stuffed
+her young man like a Strasbourg goose.
+
+All afternoon she was filled with an excitement that was neither wholly
+pleasurable nor painful.  Her heart would keep rising in her throat,
+and stern discipline was required to put it down.  Finally she red up
+the house.  She lingered in the guest-room her hand caressing the white
+spread, while she debated whether she might ask him to spend the night.
+She foresaw her father's look of disapproval but that did not influence
+her much.  But she decided against it with a firm shake of the head.
+"Only prolong the agony," she said to herself, with her little smile of
+self-mockery.
+
+In the midst of her activities she often found time to run out on the
+porch where she could observe the progress of the _Pee Bee_, that
+slab-sided little marine monster that ploughed through the water so
+fiercely at the rate of five miles an hour.  It would take them fifty
+minutes to go and come if they did not loiter, but her father would be
+sure to want to show Counsell the Island, and incidentally show off
+Counsell to the Islanders; he would get into talk with men at the
+store.  Sure enough it was four o'clock before they started home.  Half
+way over the _Pee Bee_ suddenly stopped.  Pen could see her father
+crouching over the engine in the way she knew so well.  Counsell was
+perched up on the bow looking towards Broome Point.  So much the better
+for him if he knew nothing about engines.  Time passed and they did not
+budge.  "How bored he must be!" Pen thought anxiously.  "It will sicken
+him of us!"
+
+At last the _Pee Bee_ began to move ahead by fits and starts, Pendleton
+darting to and fro between wheel and engine.  How familiar Pen was with
+the little comedy that was taking place on board!  Pendleton would
+never let anybody else steer!  When the _Pee Bee_ finally passed under
+the bank Pen could still follow her progress by the noise she made.
+She arranged matters so that supper should come on the table at the
+moment the disgruntled men crossed the porch.
+
+She had put on the black net evening dress that had been made over
+three times.  A red peony in her corsage freshened it up a good deal,
+but in the end Pen threw it away.  "Too coquettish!" she said, jeering
+at her reflection in the mirror.  She had no idea how lovely she looked
+with her perfect neck and arms, her fine capable hands a little
+roughened by work, her eyes big with feeling yet determinedly reticent,
+and those soft, red, bitter lips.
+
+Her heart sank fathoms deep when Pendleton came in alone.
+
+"Where's Mr. Counsell?" she asked very offhand.
+
+"Stopped in his tent to tidy up a bit," said Pendleton ... "Was it
+necessary..." he began reprovingly.
+
+"You'd better do the same," said Pen coolly.
+
+Pendleton dropped the bag of mail in the hall and went upstairs
+registering disapproval in every step.  Pen rushed the supper out into
+the oven again.  Her heart was singing.
+
+Though it was still bright out-of-doors the dining-table was lighted by
+a red-shaded swinging lamp.  To be sure the shade was only of paper,
+but it made none the less a cheerful glow.  When Counsell came into the
+room his good manners failed him; he stopped short and stared at Pen in
+silence.  Pen could not look at him.  She said to herself: "He's amused
+at my silliness; dressing up in these old rags!"
+
+At the table they gave Pendleton full sway and it improved his humor.
+Counsell had discovered that it pleased Pen best to have him encourage
+her father.  Counsell's conversation with her was limited to
+compliments on the wonderful eats.  Pen received it with her little
+twisted smile.  That was the way she was.  She knew he meant it, but it
+hurt--how it hurt!  Because it signified nothing.  Nothing would come
+of it.  A long course of self-discipline had taught Pen never to build
+on the prospect of happiness, that thereby she might be saved a
+crushing disappointment when happiness failed to materialize.
+
+At the conclusion of the meal Counsell got his reward when it appeared
+that Pendleton, owing to the time he had wasted on the river, still had
+his chores to do about the place.  He departed for the barn.  Aunt
+Maria Garner waddled back and forth, clearing the table and rolling her
+eyes at the guest.  She was not a well-trained servant.
+
+"Shall we go outside?" suggested Counsell.
+
+"Mosquitoes!" said Pen smiling.
+
+She led the way into the great dim drawing-rooms on the other side of
+the hall.  The only illumination was given by a piano lamp with a
+yellow paper shade standing beside an old ebony upright.
+
+"You play?" asked Counsell.
+
+"Not for you," said Pen promptly.  "You know too much."
+
+"Anyway, I'd rather have you talk to me," he said.  "We haven't started
+to get acquainted yet."
+
+Pen's inner voice cried: "What's the use?  What's the use?"
+
+Her little painful smile tantalized him.  He said involuntarily: "You
+mock at everything I say."
+
+"Not at you," said Pen.  "At myself!"
+
+"I don't understand you," he complained.
+
+"And you have known so many girls!" said Pen, drawing down the corners
+of her lips.
+
+"Yes," he said.  "But never one like you.  In town they seem to be cut
+out pretty much to a pattern.  Some well cut, some badly.  But all the
+same pattern."
+
+Pen thought: "He's a good-natured sort.  He thinks I expect to hear
+this sort of thing."
+
+There they sat side by side on the big sofa in the seductive half light
+of the great room--but something was the matter.  They made no
+progress.  Perhaps having desired this moment so much, the realization
+of it frightened them.  With too much feeling they were dumb; and they
+did not know each other well enough to be comfortably silent together.
+So each made various attempts to start something which only resulted in
+utter banality.  They found themselves talking as primly as a couple in
+an old-fashioned romance.  The sources of laughter were frozen up.  And
+the more self-conscious they became, the stiffer grew their tongues.
+
+It was chiefly Pen's fault.  She got the notion in her head that he
+merely desired to repay her hospitality with a little gallantry, and
+she blighted his warm overtures as with a frost.  It was due to her
+fatal instinct to guard against a pain which might be more than she
+could bear.
+
+However the young man was determined; moreover he had a reputation to
+keep up.  More experienced than Pen he had learned how a little
+naturalness clears the air, and he was resolved to speak his mind no
+matter how hard she made it for him.  In the end he blurted it out
+awkwardly:
+
+"Why shouldn't I tell you? ... a fellow like me ... knocking about ...
+making a joke of everything ... you get the notion girls are charming
+useless creatures you've got to put up with because they're so charming
+...  And lots of them are useless without even being charming ... Makes
+a man cynical ... And then to meet one more charming than any and
+_useful_! ... Oh, I express myself rottenly! ... Well, it gives you a
+jolt.  You've got to rearrange all your ideas..."
+
+This was simply more than Pen could bear.  She insisted to herself that
+it was simply gallantry on his part.  Gallantry is part of the Maryland
+tradition.  She laughed in a way that dried him up, and made him turn a
+dull red.
+
+"Thanks for useful," she said.
+
+The sullen, hurt glance he bent on her seemed to say: "You're charming
+but you're very prickly!"
+
+That put the finish to their conservation.  To the outward view they
+presented the spectacle of two normal young people slightly bored with
+each other and exchanging perfunctory remarks, but in reality each was
+suffering keenly.  They couldn't make it go.  Pendleton returned to the
+dining-room where they could hear him rattling the newspaper, and they
+were even ready to wish that he would come in and separate them in
+their unhappiness.  Finally Counsell got the idea that Pen wished to be
+rid of him.  After all he'd been hanging about the place all day.  He
+rose to go.
+
+Pen's heart said: "This is the end!"  But her face only showed a polite
+and wistful blank.  She said quietly:
+
+"You'll be moving on to-morrow, I suppose."
+
+"I suppose so," he said sullenly.
+
+Pen greatly wished to say: "Well don't forget us," or something of the
+sort, light and friendly, but she could not get the words out.
+
+And of course he took her silence to mean it was all one to her whether
+he went or stayed.
+
+But he could not go like that.  He hung indecisively at the door of the
+room.  Finally he blurted out like a boy:
+
+"I say, what's the matter?"
+
+"Why, nothing!" answered Pen with a startled look.
+
+"This afternoon we were like pals....  What have I done to offend you?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," said Pen.
+
+"Oh," he said sorely, "then it's just that you don't fancy my style
+much anyhow."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't say that!" said Pen with a teasing smile.  Heaven knows
+what it cost her.
+
+"I quite understand," he said with a man's absurd injured vanity.
+
+"You understand nothing!" murmured Pen.
+
+He moved to the front door, and failed to hear her.  For a moment or
+two they looked unhappily out at the night.  The moon had risen behind
+the house and was casting long shadows athwart the lawn.  Beyond the
+edge of the bank there was a mystical sea of subdued radiance.
+
+"Well ... good-night ... good-by," he mumbled.  "Thank you so much for
+your kindness ... good-by."
+
+"My kindness!" Pen's heart cried.  "Good-by," she said aloud, without a
+suspicion of a shake or a tremor.  "Father is in the dining-room."
+
+"Please say good-night to him for me," he said hurriedly ... "Good-by."
+He held out his hand.
+
+"Good-by," said Pen, letting her cold fingers lie within his for a
+moment without any response to his pressure.
+
+He went slowly across the front porch and stepped down.  She closed the
+door.  She stood there, her arms hanging.  Her thoughts were like a
+dialogue back and forth within her.
+
+"He didn't want to go.  Why did you send him? .... But what did he want
+to stay for?  Just a summer night's flirtation.  That would have
+finished me.  It's better this way ... Maybe he meant it ... No!  That
+sort of happiness is not for me!  Might as well get used to it soon as
+late! ... I'm not going to run upstairs and cry, either!  There are the
+chickens to fasten up, the yeast to make and the milk to set out!"  Her
+arms went up above her head and fell again.  "Oh God! but life is
+dreary!"
+
+From the dining-room her father called her in a strange, agitated voice
+that sent the blood flying from her heart:
+
+"Pen!  Pen!  Come here, quickly!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE STORY IN THE _SUN_-PAPER
+
+When Pen ran into the dining-room she found the little man seated at
+the table, his reading glasses on his nose and the newspaper spread
+before him.  The face that he raised to her was pale and moist with
+excitement; his hands gripping the edge of the paper made it rattle
+with their trembling.  Nevertheless in her first glance Pen was assured
+that no disaster threatened their house.  There was even a sort of
+pleasure mixed with his horror.  Her first reaction was to chagrin at
+having been frightened for nothing.
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked sharply.
+
+"Look!  Look!" he said, pointing to the paper.
+
+With her own swift, swimming motion she moved behind him, and looked
+down over his shoulder.  She read staring headlines:
+
+WEALTHY NEW YORK STOCKBROKER FOUND MURDERED
+
+
+She was freshly annoyed by what seemed to be such ridiculous
+excitement.  "What's that got to do with you?" she demanded.
+
+"Read!  Read!" he said hoarsely.
+
+She impatiently read what was under the headlines:
+
+"Collis Dongan of the old New York family, wealthy clubman and member
+of the Stock Exchange, was found dead in his apartment last night.  Mr.
+Dongan, a widower without children resided at the exclusive Hotel
+Warrington.  The body was found by his valet George Canfield who had
+been away on a vacation granted him by his master over the holiday.
+The revolver with which the deed was done was found lying near, and at
+first it was supposed to be a case of suicide.  But Doctor Raymond
+Morsell the hotel physician who was quickly summoned by the frightened
+servant, instantly pronounced that the wound could not have been
+self-inflicted.  The bullet had entered the base of the skull.  The
+body was found lying in Mr. Dongan's living-room.  It was fully
+clothed.  There were no signs of any struggle.  Every indication
+pointed to the fact that he had been shot down from behind without
+warning.  Apparently he had been dead three days.  His blood was matted
+and dried in the rug on which he lay."
+
+Pen looked up in disgust.  "What do you want me to read this horrible
+stuff for?" she asked.  "It's like all the other cases."
+
+"Read on!" said her father.
+
+"After having summoned the doctor, the valet's next thought was to
+notify the dead man's partner Donald Counsell who occupied an apartment
+on the same floor in another part of the hotel...."
+
+Pen read this name without any sensation beyond a sudden quickening of
+interest.  She needed no further urging to read on.
+
+"... but Counsell was not found in the hotel.  Developments followed
+fast after that.  The valet, Canfield, remembered that when he left his
+master on Friday night Counsell was with him, and the two men were
+quarrelling, apparently over business matters.  He heard Counsell, who
+is a young man, violently abusing his senior.  Dongan was not seen
+alive after that.  Various persons living in the hotel testified to
+having heard a muffled sound which might have been a shot at 11.15
+Friday night.  At 11.20 the night clerk saw Counsell leaving the hotel,
+clearly in a state of agitation.
+
+"The dead man's brother, Richard H. Dongan, vice-president of the
+Barrow Trust Company, was notified, and at his suggestion a hasty
+search of the books of Dongan and Counsell was conducted for the
+purpose of establishing a possible motive for the crime.  The firm was
+found to be heavily involved owing to certain speculations of the
+junior partner on the exchange.  By the break in Union Central last
+week Counsell stood to lose seventy-five thousand dollars, which
+apparently he had no means of raising.  It is supposed that he appealed
+to his partner for help, and upon being indignantly refused, shot the
+elder man.  The case against Counsell was made complete when Thomas
+Dittmars, bookkeeper to Dongan and Counsell, reluctantly identified the
+revolver as one belonging to Counsell, and pointed out Counsell's
+initials scratched on the butt.  The bookkeeper knew the weapon because
+more than once it had been loaned to him when he had a large amount of
+Liberty bonds to deliver for the firm.  Dittmars knew nothing of the
+transactions in Union Central because they were entered in the firm's
+private ledger to which only the partners had access.  No trace of
+Counsell has been discovered since he left the hotel."
+
+Thus far the summary of facts which heads all newspaper stories.
+Several columns of comment and hypothesis followed:
+
+"On the face of it it is one of the most dastardly crimes in recent
+years.  Dongan befriended the young man upon his graduation from
+college and admitted him to a partnership in his business only to be
+swindled and finally to be shot down by his protégé."
+
+Pen for the moment disregarded what followed.  She had to stop and
+think, she would have said, but as a matter of fact she was incapable
+of thinking.  She was conscious only of a dull horror that numbed her
+faculties.  She had not yet taken it in.  Outwardly she was quite
+composed.  With the palm of her hand she thoughtfully polished a dull
+spot on the velvety surface of the table.
+
+Pendleton fairly babbled in his excitement.  "When I first read the
+story he was in the drawing-room with you.  I didn't know what to do!
+I didn't know what to do!"
+
+Pen was sharply recalled to the necessity for action.  "Well, what are
+you going to do?" she asked quietly.
+
+"My duty," said the little man swelling a little.
+
+"Inform against him?"
+
+"Inform?  What a word to use!" said Pendleton with asperity.  "I mean
+to give him up to justice as he richly deserves."
+
+"But he didn't do it," said Pen with an odd, detached air.  The words
+came out of her involuntarily.
+
+Pendleton stared.  "How do you know?"
+
+"By instinct," she said simply.
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" said Pendleton.  "You read the paper, didn't you?"
+
+Pen merely smiled the smile that women use when they decline to argue
+with a man.  It is very exasperating to a man.
+
+"You have seen the man once and exchanged a few pleasantries with him!"
+he cried.  "Do you presume to decide from that whether or not he is
+capable of murder?"
+
+"I suppose he could shoot a man--with sufficient provocation," she said
+coolly.  "Any man could I suppose ... But not like that.  Not in the
+back!"
+
+Pendleton flung up his hands.  "Isn't that like a woman!  Just because
+he has fine eyes I suppose, and a taking smile!"
+
+It never reached Pen who was busy with her own thoughts.  She knew in
+her heart without reason, without arguments that the charge was false,
+but she was searching for reasons that would convince a man.  Her
+instinct led her unerringly to the weak spots of the case against
+Counsell.
+
+"Why should he leave his pistol behind to convict him?" she asked.
+"Why should he introduce himself to us under his right name?"
+
+Pendleton waved this impatiently aside.  "Oh, they always make some
+slips.  That's how they're caught.  From the first I felt there was
+something funny about him."
+
+"It was you who first asked him to stay," said Pen indignantly.
+
+"Yes.  But I didn't expect the house to be turned upside down to
+entertain him," he retorted.  "Something funny about him, skulking down
+the Bay like that.  You remember how he said he preferred to be alone."
+
+"There's nothing criminal in that!"
+
+"I don't know.  Very strange he should slink out of the house without
+saying good-night to me.  Perhaps he saw me reading the paper."
+
+Pen all but wrung her hands.  This was men's boasted logic.  How could
+an intelligent person cope with it?
+
+The little man got up with an important air.
+
+"Don't act in haste, Dad," Pen pleaded earnestly.  "Something tells me
+you will regret it.  At least sleep on it!"
+
+"He will be gone in the morning," Pendleton said.  A look of dismay
+appeared in his face.  "Good Heavens!  If he suspects anything he will
+push off at once!"
+
+"Would you be sorry?" Pen asked astonished.
+
+Pendleton was momentarily disconcerted.  "Well no ... of course not.
+But I must do my duty just the same ... This is an important case.  I
+must act with prudence.  The eyes of the world will be upon us now."
+
+"Oh, the newspapers!" cried Pen.  "They poison our lives!"
+
+Pendleton was already at the door of the room.  "Are you going to take
+him single-handed?" queried Pen.
+
+He hesitated, puffing a little bit to conceal his discomposure.  "The
+negroes..." he hazarded.
+
+"Ellick and Theodo'!" said Pen with curling lip.
+
+Pendleton rubbed his bald crown.  "You're right," he said.  "Worse than
+useless.  I'll go to the lighthouse for Weems Locket and his assistant."
+
+"You'll have to pass the tent on the beach."
+
+"I'll row around in my skiff," said Pendleton craftily.
+
+"With muffled oars?" she asked scornfully.
+
+"Why yes," he said innocently.  He was impervious to her scorn.
+
+"Dad, you _must_ listen to me!" she cried.
+
+"This is man's work," he said, swelling up.  "You must leave it to me."
+
+A sick horror overcame her, that men were so insensible to the truth.
+What could one do with them?  It was evident from the whole tone of the
+story she had read that men had already made up their minds as to
+Counsell's guilt.  Let one of them raise the cry and all were ready to
+give tongue as thoughtlessly as a pack of hounds.  It was not the
+desire for justice that moved them but a sort of blood lust.  They
+would try him with all their solemn farcical forms of justice, but none
+the less he would be railroaded to a shameful death!
+
+"Dad!  You mustn't.  You don't know what you're doing!" she murmured,
+swaying.
+
+He stared his displeasure.  "Pendleton, is it possible that you ...
+that this young man..."
+
+She contrived some sort of a laugh.  "What nonsense!"
+
+He turned out of the door saying: "I must act at once."
+
+Pen gasped: "Dad!" and keeled over on a chair.  The swoon was perfectly
+genuine, but she lost consciousness only for the space of a breath, and
+thereafter her wits worked with the swiftness of desperation.  He was
+deaf to truth, to reason, to sense, very well then, she must use a
+woman's weapons against him.  It was Pendleton's transports of distress
+that gave her her cue.
+
+"Penny, Penny, my child!" he was crying wildly.
+
+Pen's mother had died a young woman of a heart attack, and the fear
+that Pen might have inherited her weakness was ever present in the
+good, absurd little man's breast.  It was Pen's final weapon.  Be it
+said to her credit she had never used it before.  She put her hand to
+her breast without speaking.
+
+"Oh, my child!  Look at me!  Speak to me!" he implored.
+
+"Help me to my room!" she whispered.
+
+He made a manful attempt to pick her up in his arms, but she was as big
+as he.  He could not lift her.
+
+"What shall I do!" he wailed, wringing his hands.
+
+"I can walk," she said.  "If you will help me."
+
+"But the stairs!"
+
+"Let me lie down in the drawing-room until I feel better."
+
+He helped her across the hall and Pen sank down on the old
+linen-covered sofa with the broken springs.  She was still pressing her
+hand to her breast in that mute gesture that drove him to distraction.
+In truth she was pale enough, but it was not from heart disease.
+
+He made her as comfortable as he could; he brought her a glass of
+water.  He scampered back into the hall to call up the doctor.  After
+agitated appeals to other subscribers to get off the line he finally
+got Doctor Hance on Absolom's Island.  But evidently the doctor
+declined to make the long drive around the head of the creeks and down
+the impassable Neck road.  Pendleton must come for him in his boat he
+said.  In vain the distracted father pleaded that he could not leave
+his child; the doctor was firm.
+
+Finally Pendleton said: "Very well, I'll come at once.  Wait for me on
+the steamboat dock."
+
+Pen's breast became easier.  This plan suited her very well.
+
+Crying that he was going to get Aunt Maria Garner, he ran out of the
+house.  The negro cabin was some three hundred yards behind the big
+house.
+
+Pen used the interim to get her thoughts in some kind of order.  She
+began to be conscious of a sort of exaltation.  Her thoughts ran: "He's
+in trouble!  I shall not lose him now! ... Every man's hand is raised
+against him.  He has no one but me to depend on.  He's mine!"  There
+was a terrible joy in the thought of standing side by side with him
+against the whole world.  Her breast burned with a fire of resolution.
+She even had a fleeting regret that he was not guilty; if he had been
+it would have required her to give so much more.  "I love him!  I love
+him!" she said to herself now without shame.
+
+Pendleton returned with Aunt Maria.  Pen was aware of Ellick's and
+Theodo's black faces peering in at the windows.  This interfered with
+her plans.
+
+"Send them away," she murmured.  "There is nothing they can do."
+
+Aunt Maria went out on the porch and shooed her sons home.
+
+Coming back the big negress picked Pen up without more ado and carried
+her up the stairs.  Aunt Maria had been the first person in the world
+to receive Pen into her arms, and appeared to be unconscious of any
+increase in her darling's weight.  Pendleton fluttered about her like a
+hen crying at every step:
+
+"Be careful!  Oh, be careful!"
+
+Aunt Maria laid Pen down on her bed.
+
+In the midst of his passionate solicitude, a queer little suspicion
+flickered up in Pendleton's eyes.  "While I am gone for the doctor
+don't let her exert herself in the slightest," he commanded.
+
+Aunt Maria reassured him and he hastened out of the house.
+
+The instant the front door closed behind him Pen sat up in bed, and
+felt of her hair.  Aunt Maria took it as a matter of course.
+Unlettered though she might be, she had a fully-developed set of
+instincts; she knew that all sorts of expedients were required to
+manage those unreasonable creatures, men, and she awaited the
+explanation with an air of being surprised at nothing and ready for
+anything.
+
+"I've got to go out," said Pen, exchanging her evening slippers for a
+pair of rubber-soled sneakers.
+
+Aunt Maria looked rather dubious.
+
+Pen saw that she would win her more securely by appealing to her sense
+of romance.  She began: "That young man who had lunch and dinner with
+us..."
+
+Aunt Maria's broad face softened and her eyes rolled zestfully.
+
+"There is a story in the paper accusing him of murder!"
+
+It was not what Aunt Maria expected.  Her chin dropped, and her eyes
+almost started from her head.  "Bless God!" she murmured.
+
+"Father means to give him up.  So I'm going down to warn him."
+
+In Aunt Maria fear overcame romance.  "Honey ... honey!" she stammered.
+"Doan yo' go down there!  Doan yo' take no chances!  If he's a bad man
+he'll hurt yo'!"
+
+"A bad man!" cried Pen with shining eyes.  "Aunt Maria where were your
+eyes!"
+
+The old negress was awed by that light in her child's eyes.  "Well ...
+well..." she murmured, "he sho was a pretty young man!"
+
+Seizing a sweater to cover her bare arms and neck, Pen ran out of the
+room and down the stairs.  Aunt Maria sat down muttering and shaking
+her head.
+
+Softly closing the big door behind her, Pen sped over the weedy drive.
+The main gate to the grounds was in the side fence near the edge of the
+bank.  Half of it hung askew on one hinge and the other half lay
+rotting on the earth.  Outside the gate there was a grassy road which
+made a right-angled turn there.  In one direction it ran back between
+the fields and on up the Neck; in the other it went straight ahead
+along the edge of the bank and presently descended to the old steamboat
+wharf on the property.  So swift had Pen been that her father was still
+in sight, his lantern jogging agitatedly down the road in front of her.
+He always carried a lantern irrespective of the moon.  She slackened
+her pace.
+
+The road ran gently down a natural fault in the high bank.  The earth
+was powdered with silver dust; a mocking-bird sang its casual and
+thrilling song nearby, and farther off whip-poor-wills.  The bushes
+that rose between the road and the edge of the bank were festooned with
+the vines of the wild grape.  It was the moment of its flowering and in
+this place its strange, poignant fragrance drowned the honeysuckle.  In
+after life Pen never smelled that scent without living this night over.
+She was quite collected now.  Terror, anxiety, shame and such feelings
+had been burned up by her great determination.
+
+The road ended before the dilapidated wharf where no steamer had tied
+up for many years past.  Pendleton's skiff was drawn up on the sand
+alongside, and the _Pee Bee_ anchored a hundred feet out in the stream.
+Pen hung back in the shadows until her father should get away.  Off to
+the left where the white beach curved beautifully out to the point she
+saw Counsell's little tent pitched in the sand with a fire burning
+before it, and the dark canoe drawn up.  Off the end of the point the
+spidery lighthouse fixed her with the baleful glare of its red eye.
+
+Pendleton pushed off to his motor-boat with an amount of caution absurd
+under the circumstances, for as soon as he turned over the engine she
+exploded like a gun.  This time there was no hesitation in the _Pee
+Bee_; she moved off at once with her usual violence, shattering the
+night.  Pen, watching the tent saw Counsell come out and look in the
+direction of the sound.  But presently he went back again.
+
+As soon as it was safe to do so, she picked her way out over the broken
+floor of the wharf.  The piles were gnawed and broken, and the pushing
+of the ice during many seasons had given the whole structure a rakish
+cant towards the Bay.  Pen dropped over the side into an inch or two of
+water and gingerly picked her way towards the tent.
+
+It was a little lean-to tent open to the fire in front, but with a
+mosquito curtain hanging down.  He heard her splashing towards him and
+came out.  He must have been sitting there looking at the fire and
+smoking.  His pipe was still between his teeth.  He stared at her as at
+a ghost without making a sound.  His body had a tense look.  She could
+not read his face because the moon was behind him.  Its light was
+strong in her face.
+
+"It is I, Miss Broome," she said in her direct way.
+
+He seemed to come to life.  "You!" he cried in a voice of delight.  He
+laughed shakily.  "I thought ... how foolish of me ... I was thinking
+of you ... I thought..."  He seemed unable to go on.
+
+"I came through the water to avoid making tracks in the sand."
+
+"I understand!" he said eagerly.  "I'll carry you ashore."
+
+Pen stamped her foot in the water.  "You don't understand!  Stay where
+you are and I'll tell you!"
+
+"There's nothing wrong is there?" he asked anxiously.  "I heard the
+motor-boat start off."
+
+"Wrong enough," said Pen simply.  Since nothing was to be gained by
+beating around the bush, she blurted out the truth.  "Collis Dongan has
+been found shot dead in his rooms, and you are accused of having done
+it."
+
+"What!" he cried with so perfect an expression of astonishment that
+Pen's breast was warmed and comforted.  No guilty man could possibly
+have simulated that look.  She had not doubted him, nevertheless it was
+sweet to be reassured.  The tears sprang to her eyes; she hung her head
+to hide them.  He did not notice them.  He was dazed.
+
+"Collis Dongan dead!" he muttered.  "When ... How?"
+
+She told the main facts of the story slowly, distinctly as to a stupid
+person.
+
+"Good God!  how terrible!" he muttered.  "How quick can I get back to
+New York?  It was suicide of course.  He had cause enough."
+
+"What cause?" Pen asked quickly.
+
+"He had swindled and betrayed me," Counsell said bitterly.  "And I
+found him out ... But he's dead!  I'm sorry now for the things I said
+to him!"  His thoughts flew off at a tangent.  "But how is it you came
+to tell me ... and like this?"  He was looking at her submerged feet.
+
+"My father feels it his duty to give you up," said Pen.  "I gained a
+little time by making believe to be ill.  He will be here later with
+other men."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Counsell.  "It's all got to be sifted to
+the bottom of course.  They can't have any case against me."
+
+"They have a complete case against you," said Pen.  "And don't you see,
+they think you ran away."  She gave him the points of the evidence
+against him.
+
+"That's bad," he said gravely.  "My revolver, eh?  I had lost it! ...
+But you didn't believe it!" he cried warmly.
+
+"I'm not a man," said Pen simply.
+
+"Anyhow, it doesn't alter things," he said.  "I've got to go back.
+They couldn't send an innocent man to the chair."
+
+Pen clasped her hands in a sort of despair.  Another obstinate man to
+be argued with!  "They could!  They could!" she cried.  "You don't
+understand.  I couldn't bring the paper to you because it would have
+been missed.  But you must read it later.  Then you'll see.  My father
+is just like other men.  They all seem to act in a herd.  They have
+made up their minds that you did it.  They are determined you sha'n't
+escape.  Your trial would be a mockery."
+
+He was impressed by her earnestness.  "Just the same ... I couldn't
+run," he said slowly.
+
+"You mustn't do anything on impulse," Pen urged.  "You must read the
+newspaper and find out where you stand.  You must give yourself up if
+you so decide, but not allow yourself to be caught."
+
+He seemed to be convinced, but he did not take the matter seriously
+enough to suit Pen.  He seemed to be thinking more of her than of his
+own situation.  He took a step nearer to her.
+
+"How fine of you to come to warn me!" he said warmly.
+
+Pen retreated into deeper water.  "_Please!_" she said sharply.  "There
+is not an instant to lose!"
+
+"But if I've got to go ... I must thank you," he said.
+
+It was not part of Pen's plan to let him go, but not wishing to provoke
+another argument, she let the words pass for the moment.
+
+"Anyhow, come out of the water," he pleaded.  "Your feet must be
+chilled through."
+
+He put down a paddle at the edge of the water and Pen stepped out on
+it.  He looked at her longingly.
+
+"Hurry!  Hurry!" Pen said.
+
+With a sigh he commenced to pull up the pegs that fastened down his
+tent.
+
+It was soon bundled into the canoe together with his grub-box, his
+valise, and the odds and ends of his baggage.
+
+"Get in," he said.  "I'll paddle you back to the wharf."
+
+Pen sat down in the bottom of the canoe while he perched on the stern
+seat wielding the paddle with the easy grace of long custom.  She
+watched him through her lashes.  The moon was behind him, silhouetting
+his strong frame and making a sort of aureole about his bare head.
+
+The tide was high and the water had risen to within three feet of the
+floor of the wharf.  Pen climbed out upon it.
+
+"Well, is this good-by?" he said dolefully,
+
+"No," said Pen breathlessly.  Her instinct told her there was another
+struggle of wills ahead.  "You're not going.  I'm going to keep you
+here."
+
+"What!" he cried.  "Oh, if you knew how you tempted me!"
+
+"Tempt you!" she said crossly.  "This is no time for sentiment!"
+
+"I couldn't let you," he said firmly.
+
+"Where could you go?" she demanded.
+
+"I'll manage to keep out of sight."
+
+"There is no place you could go!" she insisted.  "The _Sun_-paper is
+read on the remotest creeks.  Do you realize what a hue and cry will be
+raised in the morning?  Fifty boats will be out searching the river,
+the bay, the creeks.  How could you hope to escape?  Where would you
+get food and fresh water?"
+
+"I'll find a way," he said stubbornly.  "I'm going back to New York."
+
+"Stay here!" she pleaded.
+
+"I couldn't!  What would you think of a man who unloaded all his
+troubles on a woman like that?"
+
+"What would I think of him?"  Pen was on her knees at the edge of the
+wharf reaching down for his things.  The moonlight was in her face.
+She suddenly smiled at him in an oddly tender, an indulgent sort of
+way.  "Don't be silly!" she said brusquely.  "Hand me up that valise."
+
+The advantage was all with her now.  His man's pride was hardly strong
+enough to tear him away from her.  He passed up the valise.
+
+"I'll find some way to square the account," he grumbled.
+
+Pen smiled still.
+
+"What will we do with the canoe?" he asked, when their cargo was
+unloaded on the wharf.
+
+"Sink it in deep water at the end of the wharf," she said.
+
+"Good!  I'll empty my clothes out and fill the valise with stones."
+
+"Such a good valise," objected the prudent Pen.  "Couldn't you just
+load the stones in the canoe?"
+
+"No.  She'd roll them out and come to the top.  I can tie the valise to
+a thwart."
+
+How Pen loved to have him talk to her offhand as to another man!
+
+While he was attending to the canoe Pen busied herself dividing his
+belongings into two equal lots to carry up the hill.  Her eyes ever
+glancing in the direction of the Island finally saw a tiny red and a
+green eye turn on them from afar.
+
+"They've started back," she said quietly.  "We'll have to carry
+everything in one trip."
+
+"Oh, throw everything overboard that will sink."
+
+"You'll need it."
+
+"What are you going to do with me?"
+
+"Hide you in the woods."
+
+Presently the put-put of the noisy little boat came to them across the
+water.
+
+"No time to lose!"
+
+When Counsell came to her he coolly appropriated half her load.  They
+wasted a good minute quarreling over it.  Pen was not accustomed to
+having her will opposed by a man.  Her undisputed sway at Broome's
+Point had made her a little too autocratic perhaps.  A hot little flame
+of anger shot up in her breast.  When she became angry Counsell laughed
+delightedly.  This was outrageous.  Nevertheless she liked it.  She
+found a curious pleasure in giving in to him, and meekly accepted what
+he said she might carry.  "What is happening to me?" she asked herself
+for the dozenth time that day.
+
+They plodded up the hill under their loads, Pen in advance.  Their
+shadows marched before them.  The whole earth was held in a spell of
+moonlight and the perfume of the wild grape.  It sharpened their senses
+intolerably.  Life seemed almost too much to be borne.  Neither could
+speak.  Once Counsell bending under the weight of his pack, mutely put
+his hand forward and groped for hers.
+
+"Don't!  Don't!" she said painfully.
+
+"Oh, Pen!" he murmured.
+
+As they progressed along the top of the bank the motor-boat was
+completing her journey below them.  They could glimpse the boat through
+the interstices of the bushes, but those in the boat could not have
+seen them.
+
+"We must hurry," said Pen.  "They must see already that your tent is
+gone."
+
+Reaching the tenant cottage outside the grounds Pen said: "We could
+save time by cutting across here, but we'd leave a wide open track
+through the wet weeds.  We'll have to go around."
+
+They followed the road to the broken gate, and making the turn, kept
+along outside the fence until they got well in the rear of the cottage.
+Here the faintly marked path worn by Pen crossed the road, and they
+turned into it.  The motor-boat had come to her moorings.  Breaking
+into a sort of staggering run under their burdens they were soon
+received into the woods.
+
+"I must get back to the house before they do," Pen panted.
+
+The glade with its tiny temple presented a scene of unearthly beauty.
+A shaft of moonlight was silvering the pale dome.  The deep bowl below
+the bank was full to the brim of moonlight.
+
+A gasp of astonishment escaped Counsell.  "What's this?"
+
+"Afraid of ghosts?" asked Pen.
+
+"Try me!" he laughed.
+
+They cast their burdens on the ground.  There was no time for lengthy
+explanations or leave-takings.
+
+"Listen!" said Pen.  "Pitch your tent among the bushes at the back of
+the tomb."
+
+"I'll rig it from the branches," he said.  "Won't drive stakes."
+
+"Good!  Keep back from the edge of the bank during the day.  A small
+boat might come into the pond, looking for you.  But no native will
+come near this spot.  It's not safe to build a fire.  What have you to
+eat?"
+
+"Plenty of bread, cooked meat, eggs."
+
+"When I come again I'll bring more.  And a little oil stove.  The water
+in the pond is not fit to drink, but you'll find a spring at the foot
+of the bank.  Watch well before you show yourself in the open."
+
+"When will you come again?" he asked urgently.
+
+"When it is safe ... To-morrow night I think."
+
+"The time will pass slowly until then," he said simply.  He picked up
+her hand and pressed it hard to his cheek.
+
+Pen snatched away her hand and fled--fled from she knew not what.
+Trying to fly from the shattering commotion in her breast perhaps,
+which of course she carried with her.
+
+As she ducked through her own particular gap in the fence she could
+quite clearly hear the two men, coming up the road from the beach
+talking together in tones of chagrin.  She sped to the house and
+upstairs to her room.  Aunt Maria was asleep in a chair.  Pen awakened
+her with a violent shake, and commenced to undress.
+
+"Quick! my night-dress!" she cried.  "Throw these wet things into a
+closet.  Remember to say you put me to bed as soon as Dad went out and
+we both fell asleep!"
+
+"Bless God, honey!  Bless God!" repeated Aunt Maria.  Nevertheless she
+bestirred herself.
+
+When the two men knocked on the door a sleepy voice bade them enter.
+All was peace within the room.  Aunt Maria struggled to her feet
+assiduously knuckling her eyes; Pen lay in bed with the bedclothes to
+her chin, her eyes languourous as if but just opened.
+
+"You see," said Doctor Hance.  "It is just as I told you.  Everything
+is all right."
+
+Pendleton's feelings were mixed.  He was relieved, and as soon as he
+was relieved he remembered his suspicions.  In order to divert
+attention from Aunt Maria whose delineation of sleepiness was rather
+melodramatic, Pen smiled at her father and murmured that she felt
+better.
+
+He looked at her queerly.  He could no longer contain his chagrin.
+"He's gone!" he said.
+
+Pen, aware that the doctor was keenly observing her, made her eyes
+wide.  "Gone?" she echoed.  "Where?"
+
+"Pushed off in his canoe somewhere."
+
+"We'll get him in the morning," the doctor added, watching her still.
+"He can't get far."
+
+Pen made her face an indifferent blank.
+
+Pendleton was sent out of the room while the doctor made his
+examination.  Hance was a frowsy old man with a rough tongue and a
+compassionate irascible eye.  Everybody quarreled with him and depended
+on him as on a tower.  He had no illusions left about mankind, but he
+gave all his strength to tending them.  Pen dreaded being left alone
+with him.  However he said no more about the escaped canoeist.  From
+the character of his grunts as he sounded her she knew she had not
+deceived him at all.  When the door closed behind him she flew to it to
+hear what he would say to her father.
+
+Pendleton was just outside the door.  "Well?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"She's all right," was the gruff reply.  "A bit of a shock maybe.  No
+organic trouble."
+
+"Hum," said Pendleton, and his thoughts immediately flew off to the
+other matter.  "That engine of mine makes such a confounded racket!  He
+must have heard me start off and guessed that I was on to him and had
+gone for help."
+
+"I suppose so," said Dr. Hance with a grim chuckle.
+
+They passed downstairs.
+
+Pen thought with a thankful heart: "He's not going to give me away!
+Blessed old man!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AN IRRUPTION FROM THE WORLD
+
+At all times Pen was an early riser but next morning she was up with
+the sun.  While she was dressing, her collie Dougall set up a great
+barking in the back yard.  At night he was kept fastened in his kennel
+there to keep watch that no fox or 'possum came after the poultry.  Pen
+knew that it could not be one of those marauders now because it was
+broad day and there was no alarm amongst the chickens.  So she paid no
+attention.  Doug, like the best of dogs, sometimes raised a false alarm.
+
+Night was too far away to wait for.  Secure in the feeling of their
+solitude Pen planned to carry Don Counsell what he needed and get back
+to the house before anyone stirred.  Her father arose like clockwork at
+six and Aunt Maria turned up in the kitchen yawning about that hour, or
+later.  It was a queer thing to visit a man at five o'clock in the
+morning--but for humanity's sake!  He would be asleep in his tent and
+would never know she had been there until he awoke and found what she
+had left.  Pen's heart gave a queer little jump at the thought of being
+able to look at him sleeping without any necessity of veiling her eyes.
+
+She billowed softly down the great stairway--it was a treat to stand at
+the bottom and see Pen come down with her toes pointing--and scampered
+into the pantry.  From a high shelf she got down an old primus stove
+which had not been used in a long time, and cleaned it and filled it
+with oil.  Then she made up a basket of bread, butter, cream, eggs,
+strawberries, etc., and started out of the house.
+
+Some instinct of caution impelled her to put her things down on a chest
+in the hall, while she gave a preliminary peep out of doors.  She was
+greatly taken aback to discover another young gentleman of the world
+sitting on the porch playing with one of her innumerable kittens.  He
+sprang up, and snatching off his cap, bade her good morning.
+
+Pen could only stare and stammer.  "Why ... who ... how."  Finally she
+managed to blurt out: "Where did you come from?"
+
+His air was ingratiating--a shade too ingratiating perhaps.  "Rowed
+over from the Island," he explained.  "I arrived there about three and
+had a snooze on the seat of my car.  As soon as it began to get light I
+hunted about until I found a skiff with oars in it, and came on over.
+I suppose there'll be a row when the owner finds it gone, but I'll
+square myself with him later.  I knew your house by the cupola."
+
+Pen lacked a key to all this.  She looked her further questions.
+
+"I'm on the ---- newspaper," he went on cheerfully.  "Claude Banner is
+my name.  Last night somebody telephoned from the Island that Don
+Counsell had been here all day yesterday, so I got a car at once and
+started.  Lost my way a couple of times.  I aimed to come here direct
+by road, but the hills in the woods were washed so badly I had to turn
+around and go to the Island."
+
+"Mr. Counsell has gone," said Pen.  "You have had your journey for
+nothing."
+
+"Not at all!" he said with his assured and agreeable smile.  "It's your
+story that I came after."
+
+Pen looked at him with a kind of horror.  This possibility had not
+occurred to her.  She withdrew into herself.  "I have no story to
+tell," she said coldly.
+
+He was not at all abashed.  "My paper was the only one got the tip last
+night, and I've got to get my story over the phone in time for the
+evening edition.  You have a phone here I see.  The wires were the
+first things I looked for.  It'll be a rare scoop.  There'll be a mob
+down later."
+
+Pen shivered inwardly and looked down.  She was much confused, things
+were so different from what one imagined.  Only last night she had said
+to herself: "If I could get hold of the men who write for newspapers
+I'd make them be fair to Don."  (She already called him Don in her
+thoughts.)  Well, here was her chance, but the brash young Danner
+antagonized her so she could scarcely be civil to him.  She struggled
+with her feelings.
+
+"You'll have to excuse me.  I don't consider that the public has any
+interest in me ... or any right to intrude upon my privacy!  I hate to
+read that sort of story in the newspapers ... But of course that's not
+your fault ... I'm willing to answer any proper questions, but I must
+not be quoted.  There must be no descriptions of me or of my home!"
+
+The young man's face fell.  "But I've got to tell my story," he
+protested.  "It'll be the scoop of the year.  If I don't tell all about
+you the others will.  I can appreciate your feelings, but the others
+are hard-boiled guys I assure you.  But you'll like what I write about
+you when you see it.  Everybody does."
+
+Pen smiled wryly.  "I don't know ... You'll have breakfast with us?"
+
+"Oh no!" he said.
+
+"You must.  There's no place else for you to go.  And you've been up
+all night."
+
+He saw that she did not like him, and he appreciated her invincible
+hospitality.  "Say, I wish I wasn't here on a story!" he said
+impulsively.
+
+"So do I," said Pen.  "I must ask you to wait here until I get things
+started in the house."
+
+"But my story?"
+
+"I'll be back shortly."
+
+Pen went in and put away the things in her basket with a heavy heart.
+No chance now of seeing Don until night.  All day he would be watching
+for her.  In the course of time Aunt Maria turned up and breakfast was
+set in train.
+
+The "interview" that followed was hardly a success.  So few of Danner's
+questions came under the head of what Pen called "proper" questions.
+And the way he kept sizing her up out of the corners of his eyes made
+her stiffer and stiffer.  She wished not to be stiff; she wished to win
+Danner to Don's side.  But she soon discovered that it was hopeless;
+that the young reporter's sole business was to cater to the public
+taste.  The sly look that appeared in Danner's eyes when she casually
+expressed a doubt of Don's guilt soon put her off that line.  Meanwhile
+she was suffering horribly at the thought of having their poverty
+exposed in the newspapers.  Obviously Banner missed nothing; the
+rotting porch, the patched screens, that ridiculous barricade around
+her sprouting dahlias.
+
+Pendleton Broome presently came downstairs and Danner got along much
+better with him.  The reporter knew just how to set up the little man
+in his own esteem.  Pendleton admired the newspapers and his greatest
+pleasure was to see his name in print.  So far he had only won to the
+correspondence columns.  Pendleton encouraged, adopted a throaty voice
+and a magisterial air that caused poor Pen to squirm afresh, thinking
+of the fun the clever young man could have with her father.
+
+During breakfast Pen was obliged to hear the story of the previous
+day's happenings told and retold with much irrelevant detail.  Danner
+exerted himself to please her; he was not a bad sort of fellow; but Pen
+thinking of the other breakfasting on cold victuals and water, resented
+every swallow of hot coffee that he took.
+
+"When I first read the story in the paper," thus Pendleton, "the fellow
+was still in the house.  He was talking to my daughter in the
+drawing-room--a very gentlemanly, attractive sort of fellow you
+understand..."
+
+"So I understand," said Danner, glancing sidelong at Pen.
+
+"But there was something in his eye...!"
+
+Pen could not stand for this.  "Why, father," she protested with as
+good-natured and offhand a smile as she could muster, "be fair!  You
+never discovered that 'something' until you read the paper."
+
+"You are wrong, my dear.  From the first I was aware of a curious
+prejudice against him.  But of course I could not let it show while he
+was our guest."
+
+Pen smiling at whatever cost, let it go.
+
+"Where was I?" asked Pendleton.
+
+Danner prompted: "He was in the drawing-room."
+
+"Oh yes!  For the moment I was at a loss.  Frightfully awkward
+situation.  By the time I had resolved on a course of action he had
+left the house _without bidding me good-night!_"
+
+"Without bidding you good-night!" echoed Danner.
+
+"Without bidding me good-night!"
+
+Danner turned to Pen.  "Why do you suppose he didn't say good-night to
+your father?"
+
+"I don't know," said Pen carelessly.  "I suppose he forgot."
+
+"Perhaps he had a glimpse of the newspaper?"
+
+"He couldn't see my father from where he was."
+
+"Did he seem agitated?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"What did you do then?" Danner asked Pendleton.
+
+"My first plan was to get the lighthouse keeper to help me apprehend
+the fellow.  But as I was setting out from the house my daughter had a
+sudden attack..."
+
+Danner had the grace not to look at Pen, but she was aware of his sharp
+spring to attention.
+
+"And as I was obliged to go to the Island for the doctor I decided to
+let him help me.  But when we got back the fellow had struck his tent
+and pushed off."
+
+"That taken in connection with his failure to bid you good-night..."
+suggested Danner.
+
+"Exactly!" said Pendleton.
+
+Pen felt she would scream if she were obliged to listen to any more of
+this.  Making believe to discover an errand in the kitchen, she left
+the room.
+
+When she came back Danner asked with hypocritical solicitude: "Are you
+quite well again this morning?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Pen.
+
+Useless to expect anything from Danner.  Though he was clearly sensible
+to Pen's charm, the story was everything to him, and his nostrils were
+quivering now on the scent of a story much more dramatic than he had
+expected.
+
+Pendleton went on: "Doctor Hance is coming back in a motor-boat this
+morning, and we will search the bay shore....  We have an idea of the
+direction he took," he added mysteriously.
+
+"Wish you luck," said Danner.  "We had a message from New York last
+night that a reward of five thousand dollars had been offered for
+Counsell's capture."
+
+He looked at Pen as he said it.  She kept her eyes down, and rested her
+hands on the edge of the table that they might not shake.
+
+"What!" cried Pendleton.  "Well! ... that lets me out then.  No
+business for a gentleman, of course."
+
+Pen's sore heart warmed gratefully towards her father.
+
+"Who offers the reward?" Pen asked quietly.  (Poor Pen!  She suspected
+that her parade of indifference would never deceive the sharp-eyed
+reporter.  What she ought to have shown was a frank, natural interest
+in the matter.  But that was beyond her powers of dissimulation.)
+
+"Ernest Riever, the well-known millionaire," said Danner.  "An intimate
+friend of the murdered man, I believe."
+
+When they finished breakfast several motor-boats were seen coming
+across from the Island.  Danner made haste to get his story over the
+phone.  This was an ordeal for Pen.  The connection was bad, and Danner
+had to shout his "human interest" stuff at the top of his lungs.  Pen
+went to her room and shut the door, and buried her head in the pillows.
+Still she could hear the horrible sentences that outraged every feeling
+of privacy she had.  After that she gave up all pretense of trying to
+be agreeable to Danner.
+
+The first comers from the Island were volunteer searchers.  News of the
+reward had been telephoned down from Baltimore.  They came to Broome's
+Point with the instinct of picking up the trail where it started,
+forgetting that water holds no tracks.  One spot around the shores was
+as good as another to begin the search.  Dr. Hance was not among them.
+Possibly the reward had put him off too.  Others who had not the
+initiative to institute a search, merely came to hang around and stare
+and ask foolish questions.  A little later Captain Spinney brought over
+a whole party of reporters from Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
+These gentlemen undertook to interview Pen in a body.  She liked them
+less than young Danner.  She referred them to her father, and fled to
+her room.
+
+Pendleton, enthroned on the porch, the center of interest for the
+crowd, was in his element.  He graciously accepted the reporters'
+excellent cigars, and little by little, without realizing it,
+embroidered on his tale.  In an expansive moment he asked them to lunch
+en masse, and then in terror went to Pen to tell her what he had done.
+
+She merely nodded.  "There's enough for one meal.  But we'll run short
+at supper."
+
+She gave the necessary orders for the meal, but declined to appear
+herself.  Not until she knew the men were all gathered around the table
+did she venture to come down the back stairs and see to some of the
+things that had been left undone that distracted morning.  Then she
+shut herself up again.
+
+During the afternoon an automobile with a broken spring managed to win
+through by the road.  It brought a load of New York reporters.  These
+in asking their way had spread the news along the Neck, and the poor
+whites who lived there hidden in the woods began to straggle in in
+ox-carts, to share in the excitement.
+
+Reporters made themselves at home all over the lower floor of the big
+house, even in the kitchen where they chaffed Aunt Maria and questioned
+her adroitly.  This was a source of great uneasiness to Pen.  She was
+divided between anxiety and indignation.  There was something old
+English in Pen.  Thus to have her castle invaded was the greatest
+outrage she could conceive of.  But what could she do?  She experienced
+a sickening loss of identity.
+
+She could not stay in her room all the time.  Whenever she went
+downstairs it was to be waylaid by one or half a dozen inquisitors who
+according to their natures tried to cajole her or to entrap her into
+answering their questions.  Meanwhile the natives pressed their faces
+against the windows and stared in.  Finally Pen sought her father.
+
+"How long have I got to submit to this?" she demanded.
+
+"To what, my dear?" he asked, sparring for time.
+
+"To having my house overrun by strangers!"
+
+"Patience, my child.  They're not doing any real harm."
+
+"But our house, _our_ house?  Have we no rights in it?"
+
+"I know, I know.  But what can I do?"
+
+"Request them to leave.  They can at least wait outside the fence."
+
+"But my dear!" said Pendleton aghast.  "We've got to stand in well with
+the Press.  Suppose they were to give the impression in their stories
+that we were concealing this fellow!"  This was accompanied by his
+furtive glance of suspicion.
+
+Pen thought in dismay: "One of them has put that idea into his head!"
+She said no more, but marched indignantly back to her room.
+
+Worse trials were in store for her.  About five, from her window she
+saw a new party of men come in by the drive.  Even at the distance she
+could see that they differed subtly from the reporters, stupider
+looking men who carried themselves with the arrogance of conscious
+rectitude.  After awhile Aunt Maria came to the door of her room, the
+whites of her eyes showing.
+
+"Miss Penny, honey," she gasped.  "Yo' Paw say, please to come
+downstairs."
+
+"What's the matter, Aunt Maria?"
+
+"Detecatifs, honey!" said Aunt Maria in an awe-struck whisper.
+"Detecatifs fum Noo Yawk!"
+
+Without bestirring herself at all, Pen changed her dress and went
+slowly downstairs.  As soon as she entered the drawing-room she
+regretted her dilatoriness, for they already had Aunt Maria on the
+carpet, and the old negress was sweating in agitation.  Pen instantly
+conceived a violent dislike of her inquisitor.  He was a bull-necked,
+ageing man with pendulous cheeks and dull, irascible blue eyes.  He
+lolled in a chair by the window, with an arm over the back, and his
+fingers interlaced.  He nodded to Pen and curtly requested her to be
+seated.
+
+Pen flared up inwardly.  ("Asking me to sit down in my own house!")  In
+order to show that she was still mistress there, she moved calmly about
+the room, setting things in order.  They had presumed to shove her
+center table over to the fireplace to give themselves room.  She shoved
+it back.  The chief with an annoyed glance resumed his questioning of
+the scared negress.
+
+The room was full of people.  There were four lesser officers grouped
+around the chief's chair.  The reporters were gathered in a group under
+the arch that led to the back drawing-room.  Pen soon learned that
+there was an excellent working agreement between these two parties, the
+reporters dependent on the detectives for news, and the detectives
+dependent on the reporters for public recognition of their efforts.
+Over by the other front window sat Pendleton, leaning back in an old
+swivel chair, trying to appear at his ease.
+
+Aunt Maria was saying: "Soon as Mist' Pendleton go out Ah undress Miss
+Penny and put her in baid.  She done drap right off lak a kitten."
+
+"Then what did you do?" the man asked in the rasping voice inquisitors
+affect.
+
+"Me?  Ah didn't do nuffin, suh.  Ah jes sot."
+
+"Did you go to sleep too?"
+
+"Ah reckon Ah did."
+
+"How long did you sleep?"
+
+"'Deed I caint tell.  I aint know nuffin else till Miss Penny wake me
+up again."
+
+"So she woke you up?"
+
+Aunt Maria perceived that she had made a slip.  "Yessuh!  Yessuh!" she
+stammered.  "Miss Penny done want a drink of watah."
+
+"How did she wake you?"
+
+Again Aunt Maria's tongue slipped.  "She done shook mah ahm."
+
+"So she was out of bed?"
+
+"No suh!  No suh!" cried Aunt Maria in a panic.  "I misrecollect that.
+She jes hollered at me."
+
+It would have been patent to a child that Aunt Maria was lying.  The
+scene was intolerable to Pen's pride.
+
+"Aunt Maria, tell the truth," she said sharply.
+
+The poor old negress turned a face of complete dismay to her mistress.
+What was she to make of this?  In her confusion she was unable to get
+anything else out.
+
+To Pen the chief detective said harshly: "Please be silent, Miss.  You
+will have a chance to tell your story in a minute."
+
+Pen's eyes blazed.  "You are not to suppose that you are entrapping me
+or my servant!" she said hotly.  "I have no objection to your knowing
+that I went down to the beach last night and warned Mr. Counsell that
+he was liable to arrest!"
+
+It had the effect of a bombshell there in the room.  For a second all
+the men stared at Pen open-mouthed.  Then of one accord the reporters
+made a rush out into the hall where the telephone was.  He who first
+laid hand on it was allowed to get his call in first.  Pen was too
+angry now to be terrified by further publicity.  Their precipitancy
+merely disgusted her.  Was there no such thing as human dignity?
+
+Pendleton Broome's swivel chair had come forward with a snap.  He
+looked clownish.  He was the only one really surprised by Pen's
+disclosure.  What astonished the others was that she should have
+admitted it.  For a fleeting instant Pen felt sorry for the little man,
+but she had too much on her mind for the feeling to linger.  The
+detective was not surprised, but he had counted on dragging out the
+admission, and it annoyed him excessively to have it flung in his face.
+He affected to be consulting with his subordinates while he recovered
+himself.
+
+"You had better question me," Pen said.  "Aunt Maria knows nothing
+more."
+
+"Allow me to be the judge of that," he said sarcastically.
+
+Pen shrugged.  He went on questioning the negress, but she was reduced
+to a gibbering state.  In the end he had to let her go.  Aunt Maria
+hung in the hall, just around the corner of the door, listening with
+stretched ears.  The reporters straggled back into the room.
+
+Pen and the detective faced each other.  The man cleared his throat and
+settled his collar, gave attention to his finger nails, and glanced
+carelessly out of the window--all time-honored devices to break up the
+composure of one's opponent.  Pen merely looked at him.  Suddenly he
+rasped at her:
+
+"So you assisted this murderer to escape?"
+
+"Don't speak to me like that," said Pen quietly, with heightened color.
+"He is not yet proved a murderer."  Meanwhile her inner voice was
+saying despairingly: "You should not antagonize him!  You should not
+antagonize him!"  But it was impossible for her to act otherwise
+towards this great, stupid bully.
+
+He smiled disagreeably; nevertheless he modified his tone.  "What did
+you do it for?" he asked.
+
+"He had had dinner and supper with us," said Pen.  "I differed with my
+father as to its being our duty to inform against him."
+
+"Where did he go from here?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"What!  It was a bright moonlight night.  Didn't you have interest
+enough to watch which way he went after having warned him?"
+
+"He paddled straight out from the shore.  I didn't wait.  The
+motor-boat was coming back."
+
+"Why didn't they see your tracks in the sand?"
+
+"I walked at the edge of the water."
+
+"What did you want to deceive your father for?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Pen with her chin up.  "That is between my
+father and me."
+
+The detective abandoned this line of questioning.  "Didn't Counsell
+tell you where he was going?" he demanded.
+
+"No."
+
+"Didn't you talk down on the beach?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"I had to tell him what was in the newspaper."
+
+"Didn't he know already?"
+
+"He did not."
+
+The detective looked around at his subordinates with a leer, and they
+all laughed.  Instead of disconcerting Pen it had the effect of
+stiffening her.  She looked at one after another so steadily that their
+eyes suddenly found business elsewhere.
+
+The chief said suddenly with the air of one springing a disagreeable
+surprise: "Had you ever seen Counsell before yesterday?"
+
+"Never," said Pen.
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+Pen merely looked at him.
+
+"Answer my question, please!"
+
+"I have already answered it."
+
+"Do you expect me to believe that you undertook to save a total
+stranger from the law?"
+
+"I have stated the facts."
+
+The detective sprang to his feet and shook a violent forefinger at
+Pen--the old trick of the inquisitor.  "You have seen this man before!"
+
+"Don't shout at me," said Pen coolly.  "I am not a criminal."
+
+"As to that we'll see," he said ominously.  "Did you ever hear of
+accessory after the fact."
+
+"Well, if I am a criminal," said Pen, "I don't have to testify against
+myself."
+
+"Don't argue with me if you please," he said.  "Just answer my
+questions."
+
+"Answer me a question if you please," said Pen clearly.
+
+He stared.  He was not accustomed to having the tables turned like this.
+
+Before he could explode Pen asked her question: "You are from New York,
+aren't you?"
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"What are your rights in Maryland?"
+
+His face turned ugly.  "You'll see!"  He addressed one of his men.
+"Keesing, you have heard this young woman's admissions.  There's a
+justice of the peace over on the Island.  Go to him and make the
+necessary affidavit to secure a warrant for her arrest."
+
+The man left the room.  Pen believed this to be a bluff, and scornfully
+smiled.  Her father was impressed though.  He wilted down in his chair,
+and put out an imploring hand towards his daughter.  He was incapable
+of speaking.
+
+"Do you want anything else of me?" Pen coolly asked her questioner.
+
+Seeing that his threat had failed of effect, the detective judged it
+prudent not to prolong this scene.  "That is all for the present," he
+said loftily.  "You will please not leave the house."
+
+"Thank you," said Pen, "but until I am arrested I shall do just what I
+am accustomed to do."
+
+She left the room with her head up and went on up the stairs.  She was
+not at all pleased with herself though.  That inner voice said
+remorselessly: "You have only angered him without doing Don any good."
+To be sure, she had seen sympathy in the eyes of some of the reporters,
+but they could not say anything of course that might endanger their
+working agreement with the detectives.  At the thought of danger to
+herself Pen smiled.  She was in the frame of mind that welcomes
+persecution.  But her heart was full of terror for Don.  She had not
+foreseen that the place would be overrun like this.  He was so near!
+And the detective's order to remain in the house suggested that they
+suspected he might still be on the place.
+
+On her knees at her front window she watched the men leave the house in
+a body.  Some shrubbery cut off her view of the gate, and she could not
+tell which way they turned after passing through it.  Fortunately but
+an hour or two of daylight remained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BESIDE THE LITTLE TEMPLE
+
+When Pen was sure that the house was emptied of strangers she went
+downstairs to see about the belated supper.  She was mad with anxiety
+to know what was happening outside, but whatever comes, people must
+eat.  Everything in the kitchen was at sixes and sevens of course, and
+Aunt Maria nowhere to be seen.
+
+The old negress presently waddled in panting.  She was both terrified
+and delighted by the gale of excitement that had suddenly blown upon
+the settled peace of Broome's Point.  In order to divert her mistress'
+wrath, she made haste to give Pen the latest news from out-of-doors.
+It appeared that the detectives and the reporters had jointly hired the
+empty tenant cottage outside the gate, and were busy establishing
+themselves there.  They had sent over to the island for supplies, and
+for all the cots and bedding available.  They had hired a white woman
+from up the Neck to cook for them.
+
+"Huh!" said Aunt Maria scornfully.  "All Mis' Hat Dawkins evah cook is
+fat back and cawn pone!"
+
+Pen breathed more freely.
+
+Pen and her father supped alone together.  The events of half a
+lifetime seemed to have occurred since the last time they had sat down
+without guests, That was breakfast the day before.  By now every
+vestige of Pendleton's self-important air was gone.  The situation had
+become too big for him.  He was too much overcome even to blame Pen for
+anything that had happened.  As always when things became difficult he
+depended like a child on Pen's superior strength.  He had to blame
+something so he railed ceaselessly against the evil chance that had
+brought Counsell to their door.
+
+Pen, busy with her own thoughts let him run on.  Her brain was clicking
+like a well-oiled piece of machinery.  Like a brave fighter she had to
+count up all the chances against her.  How was she going to get out of
+the house that night, and how reach Don when their enemies were camped
+squarely beside her path?  How could she guide him to a safer
+hiding-place, and yet leave the way open to carry him what he needed
+from time to time?  How could she get him away from that dangerous
+neighborhood altogether?  But perhaps after all Broome's Point was the
+safest place in the world for him.  But if he stayed near what
+prodigies of courage, of astuteness, of resourcefulness would be
+demanded from her!  Not for an instant would she be able to relax.
+Nerved as she was it was a prospect to make her tremble.
+
+Pen enjoyed one great advantage in knowing every foot of ground around
+the place.  The daily hunt for her vagrant turkeys, as well as the
+search every Spring for their nests, had taught her that.  She knew she
+could find her way on the darkest night, but she was a good deal
+troubled by the natives wandering around the place.  A party of them
+had built a fire over in the northeast corner of the grounds as if they
+intended to bivouac there.  The darker the night the better for her.
+She watched the sky anxiously.  It was quite heavily overcast, but with
+the moon at the full there would be a good deal of diffused light just
+the same.
+
+Another danger was that her dog Dougall might betray her.  She got
+around that by instructing Thedo' to shut him up in the barn.  She had
+a convenient reason for doing so in that Doug had not been at all
+hospitable to the strangers during the day.  "He might hurt somebody,"
+Pen said.
+
+The hours after supper were very hard for Pen to put in.  Her plans
+were complete now, but she needed darkness and quiet to put them into
+motion.  Somebody had brought their mail over from the Island, and
+Pendleton was absorbed in the latest accounts of the Counsell case.
+There was nothing about Broome's Point as yet save the bare
+announcement that Counsell had turned up there in a canoe.  Pen was
+obliged to read the paper too, though it nauseated her.  This day's
+story contained nothing of especial significance.  There was an
+interview with Ernest Riever the millionaire who had put up the reward
+for Counsell's capture.  Pen determined to ask Don about him.
+
+Towards dark one of the detectives without so much as by your leave,
+came and took up his station in a chair on the front porch.  Pen
+hearing him slapping at the mosquitoes out there, smiled dryly to
+herself.  She went out into the dark kitchen and found as she expected,
+that there was another man on the kitchen porch.  This relieved her
+mind.  Much better to know where the watchers were than to have them
+concealed about the grounds.  Pen had her own way of getting out of the
+house.
+
+She could not get her father started to bed until she first made
+believe to go herself.  She lay down on the outside of her bed fully
+clothed.  When, after an age-long wait, she heard the sound of his
+snores from across the hall, she rose again and flitted noiselessly
+downstairs.  For the past hour she had heard no sound from outside.
+She was accustomed to moving around the house in the dark, and she
+already had everything she wanted to carry with her placed handy to her
+hand.  Wrapping each article separately in newspaper she put them all
+in a jute bag.  Then satisfying herself that the watchers were still on
+the front and the back porch, she made her way down cellar.  There was
+a possibility that there might be other men stationed out in the
+grounds, but she had to chance that.
+
+On the north side of the house under the kitchen the cellar
+communicated with the outside by half a dozen steps and inclined doors
+in the old style.  The milk was brought in this way and the doors were
+always open.  A clump of bushes outside accounted for the fact that the
+opening had not yet been discovered.  This was the blind side of the
+house.
+
+For a moment Pen lingered behind the bushes listening, then came out.
+All along the northern side of the grounds ran a wind-break of
+arbor-vitæ.  There was a gap in it, torn by the winter gales.  Pen made
+for that.  She neither ran nor crouched.  While she wanted to escape
+observation, if she were seen, she wished to know of it.  The fatal
+thing would be to unwittingly lead someone to Don's hiding-place.
+
+She passed through the gap and hid herself on the other side to make
+sure she was not followed.  Nobody came through.
+
+She then had to make a long detour around the house grounds, across the
+old paddock and the stable yard in the rear, across the road which led
+up the Neck and thence via a small triangular field into the woods.
+Within shadow of the woods she waited again to make sure she was not
+followed across the field.  Nothing stirred behind her.  She could see
+pretty well.
+
+There was no path through this part of the woods, and it was a matter
+of infinite difficulty to make her way through the underbrush and the
+thorny creepers without betraying herself.  She forced patience on
+herself and proceeded foot by foot.  The distance was not far and she
+laid a true course.  She came out on her own path in the woods.  Her
+heart began to beat in her throat.  A hundred paces further lay the
+little temple.
+
+He heard her coming and appeared ducking under his mosquito curtain.
+His arms went out to her involuntarily.  Pen fearful of some outburst
+made a warning sound:
+
+"Shh!"
+
+That unthinking gesture of his melted her completely.  How natural to
+have flung herself into his arms.  All her carefully built-up strength
+seemed to run away like water.  She fought against it desperately.  Not
+for an instant could she afford to relax.  She must think and be strong
+for both of them.  She turned aside from his begging arms.
+
+"I was delayed," she whispered faintly.  "Much has happened."
+
+"What does it matter?" he said warmly.  "You're here!  This is the
+longest day I've ever lived through.  You told me you wouldn't be here
+till night, but I couldn't help expecting you.  Every time a leaf
+stirred I thought it was you!"  He sought to draw her to him.
+
+"You mustn't!" whispered Pen sharply.  "We're surrounded by danger.  We
+must plan.  This place is no longer safe.  You must listen to me.
+Listen carefully."
+
+His arms dropped to his sides.  Pen hurriedly began to tell her story.
+
+He interrupted her.  "Come inside.  The mosquitoes are too bad."
+
+She hung back a little.  Could she withstand him in the close intimacy
+of his little tent?  She must!  Steeling her breast she followed him in.
+
+They sat side by side on the ground, nursing their knees and looking
+out through the mosquito curtain at the little temple outlined against
+the pale sky.  Their shoulders pressed warmly together.  That contact
+deprived Pen of the power of thinking, and she moved away a little.
+That hurt him; she knew it by the hang of his head.  But she went
+doggedly ahead with her story.
+
+When she came to the end Don said bitterly: "Well I've had plenty of
+time to-day to think things over.  There's only one course open to me.
+I've got to give myself up."
+
+Pen had expected this.  "Wait!" she said urgently.  "We must talk
+things over.  You must read the papers I brought you before you make up
+your mind.  You don't know yet what you're up against.  I don't
+understand what makes the newspapers so bitter.  Everybody who reads
+the stories is roused to a sort of craze to hunt you down.  What sort
+of a trial would you get?  Why they were even ready to arrest me
+because I took your part!"
+
+Don was wildly indignant.  "You have to go through such things while I
+sit here in safety!" he cried.
+
+"That was nothing," said Pen.  "He didn't mean it really."
+
+"I can't stand it!" cried Don.  "You don't know what I'm going through.
+Sitting here idle thinking about these things.  I'd go out of my mind!"
+
+"I do know what you're going through," murmured Pen.
+
+"Suppose I did get away," he went on.  "Would my life be worth saving
+with this accusation hanging over me?  What sort of a life would I
+lead?"
+
+"But the truth must come to light!" insisted Pen.  "We will bring it to
+light."
+
+"How can I fight for myself tied hand and foot like this?"
+
+"You could use me," she murmured.
+
+"That's just it!" he said bitterly.  "I couldn't!"
+
+"You haven't much of an opinion of women, have you?"
+
+"You don't understand me.  I don't doubt but you're a whole lot
+cleverer than I.  But I have my pride.  What would you think of a man
+who..."  He ended with a shrug.
+
+"We just argue round in a circle," said Pen dejectedly.
+
+"So it seems."
+
+"It's a waste of time," she said more firmly.  "Let us talk things over
+first and find out where we're at.  Your first thought was that it was
+a case of suicide."
+
+"I've changed my mind," he said.  "Dongan hadn't the nerve.  He was the
+sort of man to cling to life.  Besides the loss of seventy-five
+thousand wasn't a knock-out blow to him.  He could have raised the
+money."
+
+"Then it was murder," said Pen.  "That agrees with the doctor's
+evidence.  Who do you think killed him?"
+
+"I swear I don't know," said Don helplessly.  "I've been beating my
+brains all day without being able to hit out an idea.  His life was as
+open as daylight."
+
+"You knew him well?"
+
+"About as well as one man can know another.  We came of the same lot
+you see; old New York families that had been acquainted for three or
+four generations.  Lord! we were too close for my comfort sometimes.
+He was one of these men with no reticence.  His confidences were
+embarrassing.  He was alone in the world, and he had a horror of his
+own company, see?  Very often I was hard put to it to get away about my
+own concerns."
+
+"But you were much attached to him?"
+
+"Frankly, no!" said Don.  "He was the sort of man you just take as a
+matter of course.  Perfectly well-meaning, but a bit of a bore.  No
+salt in him.  I would never have gone in with him if I'd realized."
+
+"The newspaper said he was your benefactor."
+
+"Not exactly," said Don dryly.  "When I came out of college I was at a
+loose end.  I'm the last of my lot, you know.  Not a near relation in
+the world.  It's true Dongan offered me a partnership, but it was not
+altogether philanthropy.  I had twenty-five thousand to put in.  He had
+his seat on 'change and he needed the capital."
+
+"You said he swindled you."
+
+"It was his first crooked deal I'm sure.  Even now I can't understand
+it.  He must have been possessed!"
+
+"How did it come out?"
+
+"Friday night we had dinner together.  Lord! it seems like a year ago
+instead of five days ... And now the earth is over him!"  Don shuddered.
+
+"You mustn't think of that," said Pen quickly.
+
+"You're right! ... He had something on his mind.  Said he wanted to
+talk to me.  So I went up to his rooms afterward.  There he blurted out
+that he was long on Union Central.  The stock had broken thirteen
+points that day.  He was seventy-five thousand in the hole.  Hadn't a
+sou, he said.  Evidently he'd been bucking the market for some time.
+Well, that was bad enough, but he actually had the cheek to suggest
+that I take the debt on my shoulders.  I was young, he said, I could
+live it down, whereas it would ruin him.  In the end it came out that
+he had already entered the transactions in my name in our private
+ledger, knowing that I never looked in the book.  That made me see red.
+Such treachery!  I blew up.  I withdrew from the firm on the spot.
+Told him he could have my twenty-five thousand until he was on his
+feet, and he could borrow the rest from his wealthy friends."
+
+"What did you do next?" asked Pen.
+
+"I was so blazing mad I scarcely knew what I was doing.  My one idea
+was to get shut of the whole boiling.  Rotten game the Street; I was
+fed up with it anyhow.  This only capped the climax.  I longed for
+something clean like paddling a canoe in open water.  My canoe was up
+at a boat-house on Spuyten Duyvil creek.  I flung a few things into a
+valise and went right up there and got it.  I paddled right through the
+rest of the night; down to Perth Amboy and up the Raritan river.  By
+morning I was cooled off.  You see I'd no reason to worry about the
+firm.  Dongan had plenty of wealthy friends.  If he'd lived he could
+have raised the money."
+
+"How did your revolver get away from you?"
+
+"Oh! ... I don't know.  While I was packing I noticed it wasn't there,
+but I was too much excited to think about it."
+
+"Had Mr. Dongan any enemies?"
+
+"No.  How should he have?  A man like that.  Never did a positive act
+in his life, either good or bad."
+
+"A love-affair maybe?"
+
+Don shook his head with a smile.  "Not Dongan's line at all.  He had no
+luck with the sex."
+
+"Who were his friends?"
+
+"He had no really intimate friends.  Nobody who cared about him
+particularly.  Plenty of associates of course.  There was Ernest
+Riever."
+
+"I was going to ask you about him."
+
+"You know him?"
+
+"Only as a name."
+
+"Son of Scott Riever the steel magnate.  Scott Riever's one of the
+richest men in the country.  Ernest is rich in his own right, too.  He
+just fluffs around.  Has a big place up in Westchester county where he
+raises peaches and so on.  It's his hobby."
+
+"What sort of man is he?"
+
+"A queer Dick!" said Don deliberating.  "A queer Dick! ... Hard to
+describe offhand."
+
+"He has offered five thousand dollars reward for your capture," said
+Pen.
+
+Don was electrified.  "What!" he cried.  "The devil you say! ... Riever
+has come out against me! ... By God, that's funny!"
+
+"Does that make things clear to you?" Pen asked eagerly.
+
+"Wait a minute! ... Let me think! ... It's damn funny! ... Riever! ...
+My God!"
+
+"Tell me," pleaded Pen.  "Begin at the beginning.  Do you know Riever
+well?"
+
+"Sure!  It was I who introduced him to Dongan.  He's the same age as
+me.  We were class-mates in college.  We passed as pals.  But it was a
+queer sort of friendship.  I never could make him out.  I couldn't keep
+my end up with his gilded set.  I went in for athletics.  But he used
+to come around me all the time.  Flattered me and so on.  Yet he didn't
+seem to like me either.  I'd catch him looking at me in no friendly
+way.  He'd let out sneering remarks."
+
+"Is he a little man, ill-favored?" asked Pen.
+
+"Why yes.  How did you know?"
+
+Pen smiled to herself.  "Nothing.  Go on.  You were popular in college?"
+
+"So they said," Don said offhand.  "College popularity doesn't saw much
+wood in later life."
+
+"But you were prominent?"
+
+"Oh yes.  Captain of the crew in my senior year."
+
+"I see.  Go on about Riever."
+
+"Well, after we got out of college there was a sort of mix-up.  Nasty
+mess.  Riever had married upon graduation.  Her name was Nell Proctor,
+daughter of the coal trust.  I don't believe he cared anything about
+her, nor she about him.  It was just the union of two powerful families
+that both sides were trying to bring about.
+
+"Meanwhile I'd gone into the brokerage business.  Riever would always
+be asking me up to his place and I went of course.  I didn't like him
+any better than before, but I had to cultivate my graft.  I don't
+suppose Riever's stock operations meant much in his life, but he was
+far and away the biggest customer Dongan and Counsell had.  We got
+business merely through being associated with him.
+
+"I didn't mention, did I, that Riever had a rotten streak in him,
+particularly where women were concerned.  As time went on I noticed the
+fair Nell growing ever paler and more tight-lipped and I guessed that
+an explosion was coming.  Then Riever stopped asking me up there any
+more.  I wondered.  He still came around the office and gave us his
+orders.  There was a lot of talk around town, and finally a fellow told
+me they were saying that Nell Riever had done me the honor ... well you
+know."
+
+Pen's breast grew tight.
+
+"I laughed at the story.  Why we'd scarcely ever exchanged a word in
+private.  She wasn't my sort at all.  Riever's attitude towards me
+hadn't changed in the least.
+
+"Soon there was a complete bust-up of the Riever establishment.  Nell
+sued him for divorce.  She had cause enough God knows.  His affairs
+were notorious.  He set up a countersuit and produced a letter in court
+that Nell had written to some unnamed man.  Ernest had intercepted it.
+Well this letter was published and I knew by internal evidence that it
+was ... well you know ... it had been written to me.  A man hates to
+tell these things about himself!  Poor girl!  Just a foolish impulse no
+doubt, that she regretted as soon as she had given away to it!  Anyhow
+the letter was thrown out and she got her divorce with thumping
+alimony."
+
+Poor Pen was thinking to herself: "I wish I hadn't had to hear about
+this woman.  I shall remember her!"
+
+Don went on: "My name had not been mentioned openly, and Riever still
+came around the office.  He still made out to treat me as an intimate
+friend, but that was just to put off the gossips.  I began to be aware
+of a change.  Once or twice I caught his eyes fixed on me with an
+expression that was simply poisonous!"
+
+A sharp exclamation escaped from Pen.
+
+"Made me damned uncomfortable," said Don.  "Not that I was afraid of
+him, poor little runt!  But one hates to know that there are ugly
+feelings like that around.  He got in the way of giving Dongan his
+orders.  He and Dongan became quite thick."
+
+"Did this have any effect on Mr. Dongan's attitude towards you?" asked
+Pen.
+
+"Yes," said Don, "now that you speak of it; Dongan had been acting
+queerly towards me for some time past.  Relations were a little
+strained.  But I never gave it much thought."
+
+"Would Mr. Dongan have consulted Mr. Riever about his speculations?"
+asked Pen.
+
+"Sure!  Any tip that Riever let drop would be received as gospel."
+
+"How about that stock you spoke of?"
+
+"Union Central?"
+
+"Do you suppose Mr. Riever advised Mr. Dongan to buy it?"
+
+"Scarcely.  Scott Riever's on the Board of Union Central.  He'd have
+inside information if anybody had."
+
+"But suppose Mr. Riever purposely advised him wrong."
+
+"Why should he?"
+
+"To get at you through him."
+
+"Good God!" said Don.
+
+There was a silence while each was thinking hard.
+
+"Wait a minute," said Don.  "There's a flaw in your reasoning.  How
+could Riever have known that Dongan was trying to put it off on me?"
+
+Pen shrugged.  "Who knows what may have passed between the two men?  A
+suggestion may have been dropped."
+
+"I have it!" cried Don.  "Riever could easily tell Dongan to put the
+orders through in my name so that it would not be guessed that the tip
+came from him.  Everybody knew Riever and I were at outs, you see."
+
+"Well there you are," said Pen.
+
+There was another silence.
+
+"You know what I am thinking," said Pen at last.
+
+"My God, yes!" said Don.  "Me too! ... But it's incredible!"
+
+"Somebody shot Collis Dongan," said Pen simply.  "_Somebody who hated
+you_.  For look how cleverly the crime has been fastened on you.  That
+is no accidental train of circumstances.  Your revolver!  And somebody
+keeps sending stuff to the newspapers that is cunningly designed to
+poison the public mind against you!"
+
+"But how could Riever get away with it?" asked Don in a maze.  "He's
+too public a character.  Like some sort of potentate you know.  He
+never goes out alone.  Even if he did shake his body-guard, every
+newsboy on the street would recognize him."
+
+"I don't suppose he did it himself," said Pen.  "But with his money he
+could easily get it done, couldn't he?  One reads of such things."
+
+"But if I was his mark, why didn't he take a shot direct at me?" said
+Don.
+
+"That wouldn't satisfy a man like that," said Pen.  "Instant death is
+painless."
+
+"But what do you know about Riever?" asked Don.
+
+"My intuition tells me," she said simply.  "For years he has been
+jealous of you; jealous of everything you were that he was not.  It was
+like a corroding ulcer in his breast.  That letter of course brought it
+to a head....  Don't you see? to drag you down, to disgrace you so
+completely, to bring you to such an unspeakable death, that is the only
+thing that would give him satisfaction."
+
+"Good God!  I can't grasp such fiendish villainy!" cried Don.
+
+"I can," said Pen quietly.  "... I guess my soul is older than yours."
+
+"Suppose we're right," said Don.  "What good?  There is not a scintilla
+of evidence!"
+
+"He showed his hand once," said Pen.  "In offering that reward.  Your
+going away on a trip was the one thing he couldn't have foreseen.  It
+has upset all his calculations."
+
+"The reward aroused my suspicions," said Don.  "But it's not evidence."
+
+"We'll get evidence."
+
+"We're up against it all right," said Don harshly.  "What is known as
+the Riever group in New York controls a billion dollars, I guess."
+
+"Then you're satisfied that I was right, aren't you?" asked Pen.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"If you gave yourself up you'd be playing directly into Riever's hands."
+
+Don dropped his head between his hands.  "You're right!" he groaned.
+"But good God! how am I going to stand it!"
+
+Poor Pen!  Her breast yearned over him; her arms ached to enfold him.
+But she could only sit there like a wooden woman, staring at the
+ground.  There was nothing she could have said which would not have
+been a mockery.
+
+He said at last: "I ought to be in New York."
+
+"It would be impossible to make the trip just now," Pen said quickly.
+"If you only had somebody there to act for you."
+
+"I have friends, plenty of them," he said gloomily.  "But whom could I
+trust in an affair of this sort?  It's not their loyalty I doubt, but
+their good sense ... Anyhow how could I get my side of the case before
+them?"
+
+"Couldn't I carry messages to your friends?" asked Pen diffidently.
+"Perhaps I could find someone competent to act for you ... Perhaps I
+could get acquainted with Riever.  If I could see him I'd _know_.  A
+woman might discover his weak spot ..."
+
+"I wouldn't let you have anything to do with Riever," he said quickly.
+"He's a swine!"
+
+Pen was charmed by his proprietary air.
+
+"Besides all that would take money," Don went on dejectedly.  "I have
+only a few dollars.  A check would be fatal."
+
+"Perhaps I could find the money," murmured Pen.
+
+"I couldn't let you do that," he said painfully.  "Please don't speak
+of it."
+
+"But if it is necessary!" she persisted.  "This is no time for the
+silly little conventions of life.  We must speak of it again...  What
+time is it?"
+
+He flashed a pocket light on his watch.  "Two o'clock."
+
+Pen rose.  "We must hurry," she said.  "It gets light at four and we've
+a long way to go."
+
+"Where are we going?" he asked.
+
+"To the main woods, up the Neck.  The detectives and the reporters are
+housed within a quarter of a mile of this spot.  If they look around at
+all in the morning they can't help but discover the path that leads
+here.  Strangers wouldn't be kept off by the bad reputation of the
+place."
+
+"How can we get away without passing them?" Don asked.  "Give me some
+idea of the lie of the land."
+
+"The woods are full of old roads," said Pen.  "Since I was a child I
+have been exploring them.  Some were laid out by my grandfather for the
+gentry to drive over.  Others have been cut for the purpose of taking
+out logs.  Across the pond there's a road comes down to the shore.  We
+must make our way to that."
+
+Again they went through the business of packing up.  In a few minutes
+they were ready to start.  With Don's flashlight Pen searched all about
+the clearing to make sure that no evidence of his sojourn had been left
+there.  Don made a bundle of his tent and tied it on his back.  He took
+his grub-basket in his hand, and stuck his hatchet in his belt.  Pen
+stuffed his bundle of clothes into the grass bag with the things she
+had brought.  They started down to the water's edge.
+
+Don's spirits instantly began to rise.  "I feel like a human being
+again," he said.  "Instead of a caged rat."
+
+From the spring Pen struck into the underbrush, using Don's flashlight
+to pick her way slowly and cautiously through the tangle.  A few yards
+back from the water's edge it was more open.
+
+"We'll leave a wide open track behind us here," she said, "but I don't
+suppose those New York detectives are very good woodsmen."
+
+"Why couldn't we wade around the edge of the pond?" he asked.
+
+"The bottom is soft.  We'd sink to the knees."
+
+Finally they struck into the old road where the going was easy.  They
+could walk abreast.
+
+"When Dad sells wood they haul the logs down here to the water's edge
+and float them out to the bay at high tide," said Pen.
+
+She warned him to avoid the paler spots in the road.  These were
+patches of sand.  "Doesn't matter so much if they find my tracks," she
+said, "anybody around here would tell them that I am always wandering."
+
+It was a hot still night with distant lightning.  Something seemed to
+press down upon them from above.  The woodsy smell compounded of leaf
+mold and pine needles was extraordinarily pungent.  The silence under
+the trees was absolute.  Not a leaf rustled, not a bird cheeped, not an
+insect strummed.  Only when they paused to rest could they hear little
+stealthy stirrings in the mold.
+
+"Mink or weasel," said Pen.
+
+Though they had now put their enemies far behind them, out of respect
+for the great silence they still talked in murmurs.  The wild creatures
+were less sensitive.  Once they heard quite close the sharp bark of a
+fox, and again from farther away a wild laugh came ringing.
+
+"What's that?" asked Don startled.
+
+"Loon," said Pen.  "There's another pond in that direction."
+
+Little by little they became one with the night and the wildness; their
+worldly concerns slipped off; their breasts were light.  It was enough
+merely to smell and to hear; to stretch their muscles.
+
+"Why do people live in houses?" said Don.
+
+"Poor things!  They know no better," said Pen.
+
+More than once the road forked but Pen always made her choice
+unhesitatingly.
+
+"How can you be so sure in the dark?" he asked.
+
+"I just have a general notion," she laughed.  "We couldn't go far
+wrong.  The Bay is on one side of us, the fields on the other."
+
+After a long walk they came suddenly to the edge of the woods.  A rail
+fence divided woodland and clearing.  There was a barred opening into
+the field.  Pen dropped her bag on the other side and vaulted over like
+a boy.  Don more heavily encumbered had to climb over.  On the other
+side some dim shapes rose awkwardly in the grass and trotted away.
+
+"My sheep," said Pen.  "I know where we are.  I mended that fence
+myself to keep them from straying."
+
+At one step they had entered the civilized world again.  Up the river
+the steamboat blew for a wharf, and they could hear from far-off the
+barking of a dog, and all those vague little sounds that rise from a
+peopled land at night.  The field was populous with crickets and the
+wide space was made lovely by myriad fire-flies floating about like
+vagrant stars.  The field was a broad one, and the going rough
+underfoot.  Young pine trees were springing up everywhere.
+
+"Hanged if I know where I am," said Don.
+
+"We're facing north now," said Pen.  "That pale glow in the clouds is
+the reflection of the lights of Washington, seventy miles from here."
+
+"Fancy the Nation's capital ... and this!" said Don.
+
+"That bunchy black shadow away off to the left is the grove of tall
+trees that surrounds our house.  We have circled round it you see.  The
+long line on the right is the main woods which fills the whole Neck for
+miles above.  All our fields lie on this side.  The woods are gradually
+taking them back."
+
+"If you put me in those woods will I ever see you again?" he asked
+apprehensively.
+
+"Oh, it's not much more than a mile from the house.  That's nothing."
+
+They came to another fence with a barred opening, and climbing over
+found themselves in a road.
+
+"What road is this?" asked Don.
+
+"There's only the one road," Pen said.  "It runs back from the house
+between the fields and on through the woods up the Neck."  She
+hesitated painfully.  "What time is it?"
+
+The question brought back everything painful that they had put out of
+mind for awhile.  Their hearts went down together.  He threw the light
+on his watch.
+
+"Half-past three," he said.
+
+"Ah!" said Pen with a catch in her breath, "I dare not go any farther
+with you.  It will be light in half an hour.  Do you think you could
+carry everything the rest of the way?"
+
+"Sure, as far as that goes.  But ... but must you go?"
+
+"I must! ... Listen!  You are to keep along the road until it enters
+the woods.  It dips into a hollow there and fords a small stream.  You
+are to turn to the left there--to the left, remember, and ascend the
+stream, walking in the water.  It has a firm sandy bottom, at least for
+a certain distance.  As soon as you are out of sight of the road,
+better stop on the bank until it is light, so you won't mire yourself
+or step in a hole."
+
+He put out his hand to her.  "When will I see you again?"
+
+"You are not listening! ... You must keep on up the stream until you
+come to a clearing on the right-hand side.  Up at the top of the rise
+there used to be a negro cabin.  But it burned down.  Only the chimney
+is standing.  Don't pitch your tent in the clearing.  It would be too
+conspicuous.  Conceal it in the brush across the stream.  I can reach
+you there direct from the fields.  If I can't find you I'll whistle
+like a whip-poor-will.  And you answer."
+
+"When will you come?"
+
+"To-morrow night.  Unless I am prevented."
+
+"Oh! ... if you are prevented...!"
+
+Pen laughed shakily.  "Not much danger!  They'll have to be very clever
+to keep me in!"
+
+He clung to her hand.  "Well ... I'm not going to complain," he
+muttered.
+
+Pen clasped his hand in both of hers.  "Oh, I know how hard it is!  How
+hard!" she cried.  "Try to be patient.  It may not be for long!"
+
+"It can not be for long," he muttered.  "A man has his limits!"
+
+"The search may drift away from Broome's Point," she said eagerly.
+"Anything may happen....  To-morrow night when I come I'll bring you
+some books."
+
+"Books!" he exclaimed scornfully.
+
+"Well, anyway at night we can wander around where we please."
+
+"If you work all day you've got to have your sleep at night," he said
+doggedly.
+
+"Sleep!" said Pen.  "I've got all the rest of my life to sleep in!"
+
+He was still clinging to her hand.  "It's so hard to let you go," he
+murmured.  "Could you ... Oh, I know I haven't any right to ask it ...
+in my position ..."
+
+Pen hated his humility.  She stamped her foot.  "Any right!  What's
+your position got to do with it?"
+
+His head went up with a jerk.  "Pen!" he cried.
+
+Pen was plain panic-stricken.  "Good-night!" she said, jerking her hand
+free.  "The sky is getting light behind you!"
+
+She all but ran down the road.  Once she looked behind her.  He was
+still standing there.  If he had called her she would have had to go
+back, let the dawn break if it would.  But he heavily shouldered his
+pack, and turned in the other direction.
+
+
+At the breakfast table next morning Pen suddenly interrupted her
+father's endless, querulous complaints by saying: "Well, how about me?"
+
+He stared.  "Hey?" he said blankly.
+
+"Do you suppose I'm enjoying the present situation?  Stared at, spied
+upon, my house overrun with riff-raff!  It's intolerable!"
+
+"Of course! ... Of course!" he stammered.  "That's just what's
+troubling me."
+
+"I want to go away until it blows over," said Pen.
+
+Pendleton looked scared.  "But ... but would they allow you to?"
+
+"Pooh!" said Pen.  "That threat of arrest was just a bluff."
+
+"Where would you go?"
+
+"Oh ... anywhere."
+
+"I haven't the money," he said plaintively.
+
+"I'd pay my own."
+
+That old look of suspicion flickered up in his eyes.  "Where would you
+get it?"
+
+"Well ... I could sell my sheep."
+
+"Sell your sheep!" he echoed.  "Why ... preposterous!  Why the sheep
+are the best part of our capital!"
+
+"My capital," corrected Pen.
+
+"Certainly," he said stiffly.  "But I'm your father I suppose.  I have
+a right to prevent you doing anything so foolhardy.  Just to gratify a
+momentary impulse.  I forbid you to think of such a thing!  Never speak
+of it again!"
+
+"Oh, all right," said Pen, dropping the matter so quickly that a more
+perspicacious man might have guessed she had not dropped it at all.  As
+a matter of fact as soon as breakfast was over she took the _Sun_-paper
+to her room and looked up the quotations for sheep and lambs on the
+Baltimore market.  Prices were low, but there was no help for it.  She
+fell to studying ways and means.
+
+Later she was moving about the house setting things to rights and
+always planning, planning, when she heard a musical deep-toned ship's
+whistle from the river--the whistle of a stranger in those waters.  She
+ran to the front windows and beheld a big yacht coming in from the bay.
+She was as slim and sheer as a pickerel with a piratical rake to her
+masts and funnel.  The morning sun showed up her mahogany upper-works
+as red as blood, and dazzlingly picked out her polished brasses.  A
+beauty!  An anchor was let go with a mighty rattling of chain, and the
+yacht slowly came about in the stream.
+
+Pen knew by intuition that her coming had something to do with the
+matter that filled all their minds, but pride forbade her running out
+of the house to find out.  With a great effort of will she kept on
+about her work, possessing her soul in what patience she could.
+
+Bye and bye there was a rat-tat-tat on the seldom-used knocker on the
+front door.  Opening it, Pen beheld a ship's officer in natty blue
+uniform and gold braid.  He took off his cap and offered her a note.
+
+It was addressed to herself.  It was written on thick creamy paper
+embossed with a crest and the legend: "_Yacht Alexandra_."  It was
+brief.
+
+"Mr. Ernest Riever presents his compliments to Miss Pendleton Broome,
+and begs to know if it will be convenient for her to receive him this
+morning."
+
+Pen's brain whirled.  She lowered her eyes and gave herself five
+seconds to regain her balance.  Finally the suspicion of a dimple
+appeared at the corner of her lips.  She looked up.
+
+"Please tell Mr. Riever that I shall be happy to see him at any time."
+
+She went slowly upstairs to change her dress.
+
+The sheep were saved!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ON BOARD THE ALEXANDRA
+
+Under the awning on the after deck of the _Alexandra_, Pen was
+reclining in a luxurious basket chair with her feet crossed on a rest
+in front of her.  Her brow was clear, her lips smiling.  To have seen
+her then, one would never have guessed that she had anything more on
+her mind than the deliciousness of luxury which she was experiencing
+for the first time in her life.  As a matter of fact being a human,
+pretty girl she took to it like a cat to cream, but just the same there
+was a lot hidden behind her seeming open smile.  She knew that she
+looked all right.  Poor as they were, in Aunt Maria Pen possessed a
+laundress, one of a fast-disappearing race, and there was a bloom upon
+her simple gingham dress that matched the flower-like freshness of
+herself.  It was mid-morning but Pen's undone chores troubled her not a
+bit.
+
+The _Alexandra_ had been lying inside Broome's Point for two days.  On
+the first day Riever had lunched with the Broomes; yesterday he had
+returned their hospitality.  Of the two Pen's food was undoubtedly
+better, being fresher than the millionaire's, but she had tasted with
+delight all the expensive things she had read about which never came to
+Southern Maryland: Caviare, _petite marmite_, _paté de fois gras_,
+hothouse grapes, marrons, etc.  This morning Riever had insisted on
+having the Broomes to breakfast on the yacht.
+
+A few feet from Pen the owner of it all was sitting on the wide divan
+that encircled the stern rail.  Pendleton Broome sat beside him, and on
+the deck between the two men stood a little table bearing coffee cups
+and a box of such cigars as the elder man had never whiffed before even
+in dreams.  Pendleton was holding forth to Riever in his usual style,
+while the millionaire listening politely, glanced at Pen out of the
+corners of his eyes.
+
+The coming of Riever had changed the situation not a little.  Riever
+moved like an unacknowledged monarch.  The tale of his wealth compelled
+men's homage.  In his presence all voices were prone to become silky
+and backs to bend.  Riever like many another monarch despised this
+homage while he insisted on it.  His more intimate creatures therefore
+were careful to cultivate an offhand, man-to-man air towards their
+master while they utterly subordinated their souls to his.  This just
+suited him.
+
+Well, Riever being what he was, he had only to drop a suggestion to
+Delehanty the chief detective to have all surveillance removed from
+over Pen's actions.  She was now free to come and go as she chose.  Of
+course nothing further had been said of the proposed warrant for her
+arrest.  Delehanty had become as obsequious towards her as he had
+previously been arrogant.
+
+A curious relation existed between Pen and the millionaire.  From the
+first he had been most courteous, but in the beginning it had been
+dictated merely by motives of policy.  He could see a little further
+than the clumsy Delehanty, that was all.  Pen recognized in him an
+adversary infinitely more dangerous.  But he had changed.  The second
+time she saw him she became aware that she had a power over him.  In
+short he was powerfully attracted.  Pen marveled at it.  _Riever_, who
+presumably had only to pick and choose from among the beauties of the
+world!  But though she could not understand how it had come about, she
+rejoiced in her power, and had no scruples whatever against using it.
+
+To anyone else beside Pen the explanation would have been obvious
+enough.  It is all very well to buy yourself royally through a world of
+salable women, but it lays you open to a dangerous weakness.  When you
+meet a woman who is obviously not for sale, you are apt to fall down
+before her most ignominiously.  That was what had happened to Riever.
+Just because he was so rich Pen had instinctively adopted an
+independent air towards him that piqued him intolerably.  _Really_
+independent.  Then there was that highly individual charm of hers.  And
+her independence was not indifference.  With all his experience Riever
+had never met a woman like Pen.  Or perhaps it would be more correct to
+say that a woman of Pen's spirit and transparent honesty had never
+before taken an interest in the ugly little man.
+
+When she was with Riever it need hardly be said that Pen was not nearly
+so honest as she seemed.  In fact she concealed herself behind her
+apparent frankness.  That is the great advantage of having a naturally
+honest look.  It enables you to lie so well when you have a real need
+of lying.  Since Riever had arrived the two had been almost constantly
+together, and a sort of subtle duel going on between them.  Pen's
+object was to encourage him without giving of herself.  He was the
+first man she had ever set out to encourage.  It was a sufficiently
+intoxicating experience for the man.  Pen's blandishments were very
+different from the sort that Riever had been accustomed to.
+
+As for Pen's father he had swallowed the lure of luxury, hook, bait and
+sinker.  At this moment buttoned up to the neck in his old Prince
+Albert he seemed to be perspiring satisfaction.  He had come into the
+sort of life that he regarded as his own.  To see him stretch his arm
+over the stern rail and flick the ash off the expensive cigar with his
+little finger was a treat.  Pendleton Broome was the sort of man who
+will always be flattered because he asked for it so plainly.  It was
+Riever's cue to encourage him to the utmost.  After his first meeting
+with the millionaire Pendleton had said to Pen:
+
+"I find I have not rusted out in my solitude.  I can still keep my end
+up with men of the world.  Riever listens to me with the most
+respectful attention."
+
+Pen had smiled to herself without answering.
+
+More had passed between the two men than Pen was as yet aware of.  She
+knew that Riever had promised to look into the matter of the Broome's
+Point railway, thus raising her father's hopes to the skies, but she
+did not know that Riever had actually purchased half a dozen lots
+adjacent to the proposed terminal and that the inside pocket of the old
+Prince Albert was at this moment crackling with greenbacks.
+
+Pendleton was saying self-importantly: "The original grade of the
+railway issues from the gully yonder.  The plan was to build a long
+dock straight out to deep water.  But there's a shoal off the gully.
+My plan would be to have the tracks turn along the shore to a point
+below the house where they could build all the docks they wanted right
+into deep water."
+
+Riever gave him only as much attention as was needed to keep him going.
+"But that would ruin the outlook from your house," he suggested idly.
+
+"Oh, I shall not remain here after the railway comes," said Pendleton
+loftily.  "I'd take an apartment in New York, and perhaps a house in
+Newport."
+
+"Newport is not what it was," remarked Riever.
+
+"Ah, the vulgar have taken possession I suppose," said Pendleton.  "My
+father had a place there.  My childish recollections of it are most
+pleasant."
+
+"People are scattered all over the map nowadays," said Riever.
+
+"That I presume is due to the introduction of the automobile," said
+Pendleton.  He launched into a discussion of automobiles of which he
+knew nothing.
+
+Riever listening gravely, sent a quizzical glance in Pen's direction.
+But Pen was not to be tempted into making common cause with him against
+her father.  She looked blandly ahead of her.
+
+Pendleton himself delivered them from boredom.  He had observed
+Riever's interest in his daughter and was not without his hopes in that
+direction too.  By and by he rose saying with a self-conscious air:
+
+"... Er ... I have some important letters to get off this afternoon.
+If you'd be good enough to put me ashore, Riever.  You needn't hurry,
+daughter."
+
+Under other circumstances Pen would have been deeply affronted by his
+transparent ruse.  But as has been said, in this affair she had no
+conscience.  She allowed it to be seen that she had no intention of
+moving.
+
+Riever made haste to summon the boat.  Pendleton went down the ladder
+in his absurd three seasons' straw hat, bobbing his head and waving his
+hand airily.  Towards the sailors his air of mingled condescension and
+goodfellowship was delicious.
+
+Pen glanced at Riever through her lashes as he returned to her.  The
+little man held himself stiffly in his blue yachting togs and walked
+with a suggestion of a strut.  The greatest tailor in the world could
+not endow his meager frame with beauty or grace, but it was not to be
+denied that his wonderfully made clothes lent him a certain distinction.
+
+He patted the cushions of that wonderful divan that encircled the
+stern.  "Wouldn't you be more comfortable here?"
+
+"Impossible!" drawled Pen.
+
+"A cigarette?"
+
+"Never learned how," she said.  "I'll make my first trials in private."
+
+"I'll send you a box."
+
+He sat down and feasted his eyes on her openly.
+
+He was no beauty.  His face was a little reddened and roughened with
+incipient erysipelas.  Don had said that he and Riever were of the same
+age, but the millionaire might have been of any age between twenty-five
+and forty-five; there was no look of youth about him.  He was redeemed
+from insignificance by his assured habit of command.  Yet his assurance
+did not go very deep.  Pen had discovered that he might quite easily be
+put out of countenance, only nobody ever tried it.  When he chose as at
+present, he could be most agreeable, but there was always a pained roll
+to his eyes, such as may be seen in the eyes of a bad-tempered horse, a
+look that boded no good to his underlings.
+
+A curious thing was that in their endless conversations Don Counsell
+was never referred to but in the most casual manner.  Each had a secret
+to guard here.  Pen kept her secret better than the man did.  Riever
+wished it to be supposed that he had just happened in at Broome's Point
+on his yacht.  That his coming at this time had only the slightest
+connection with the pursuit of Don Counsell, Pen knew better of course.
+On every hand she gathered evidence that Riever was the head and front
+of the pursuit.  Riever was the secret source of the hideous clamor
+raised against the man Pen knew to be innocent.  Twenty times a day
+Riever gave himself away to her love-sharpened eyes--but it was not
+evidence!
+
+Meanwhile they fenced with each other.
+
+"You should not encourage Dad in his delusions," said Pen.
+
+"You mean about the railway?" said Riever.  "I could put it through
+with a nod of my head if I chose."
+
+"But you won't," she said.
+
+"How do you know I won't?"
+
+"You are so clearly only humoring him."
+
+"Good Heavens!" he said in mock dismay.  "Do you undertake to read men?"
+
+"I don't undertake it," said Pen.  "You can't help seeing what you see."
+
+"I could put it through," he said again, "if there was sufficient
+incentive."
+
+"Of course," said Pen.  And let the matter drop.
+
+He was trying to make her beg for the railway.  What most fascinated
+and provoked him in her was his inability to make her ask him for
+anything, or take anything from him.  Everybody else in the world asked
+him for things one way or another.
+
+He presently went on: "That's the trouble with life to a man like me: I
+have no particular incentive to do anything."
+
+Pen refused to recognize his money.  "Why haven't you the same
+incentive as other men?" she demanded to know.
+
+"What are men's principal incentives?" he parried.
+
+"Well, love, ambition, the desire to excel other men, I suppose."
+
+"Yes, one could go far for love," he said with a sidelong look.
+
+Pen without looking at him was aware of the look.  She thought: "Men
+are funny!  He's trying to make me philander with him in a crude way,
+and if I did he'd weary of me immediately!"
+
+It was Riever's desire to shine in her eyes that frequently betrayed
+him.  She was not impressed by his wealth; very well, he had to find
+some way of making himself out a remarkable figure.  He presently said
+with a casual air:
+
+"How about hate as an incentive?"
+
+Pen pricked up her ears.  She answered as casually as he: "I always
+thought of hate as destroying a man instead of nerving him to do
+things."
+
+"Not at all," he said.  "Hate will carry a man as far as love--or
+farther."  His feelings got the better of him.  He forgot his casual
+air.  "There's more in hate than love!" he went on with glittering
+eyes.  "Men get tired of loving, but never of hating.  There's more
+pleasure in hate because you never can entirely possess your lover, but
+you can destroy your enemy! ... Do I horrify you?" he asked with a
+sudden harsh laugh.
+
+"Not in the least," said Pen coolly.  "Nothing of that sort horrifies
+me, though I might have to make believe to be horrified."
+
+"Not with me," he said, showing his yellow teeth.
+
+"It is comfortable not to have to make pretenses," Pen said.  That was
+as near as she could come to philandering.
+
+"I believe you'd make a good hater," he hazarded.
+
+"Maybe," said Pen.  "I've never had the experience like you."
+
+An instinct of caution occurred to him.  "Oh, you mustn't take me too
+literally," he said laughing.  "I haven't anybody to hate at present.
+But I have the capacity."
+
+It was too late.  His glittering eyes had reminded Pen of Don's phrase:
+a poisonous look.  It was precious evidence to her heart, but
+unfortunately not the sort of evidence she could take into court.
+
+She was reluctant to drop the subject of hatred.  "The Borgias were
+good haters," she hazarded.  "I lately read a story which told how
+Alexander Borgia caused a bed to be made for his enemies.  It was so
+arranged that when a body warmed it it killed like a hammer-stroke."
+
+"A fanciful tale," said Riever.  "All the killing poisons I ever heard
+of have to be introduced into the stomach, the blood or the lungs."
+
+He spoke as one who knows, and Pen, wondering, pursued the subject with
+further questions.  It was like tapping a hidden spring in the man.
+With a curious relish he described the action of various poisons on the
+human system.
+
+"Cyanide is the neatest," he said.  "There's your hammer-stroke."
+
+Pen thought: "Has he tried that too? ... Collis Dongan was shot!"
+
+She betrayed nothing in her face, but Riever suddenly, with an uneasy
+glance, was impelled to explain how he came by so much knowledge.  "You
+see my hobby is raising fruit," he said.  "My peaches have scores of
+enemies; suckers, chewers, fungi and bacilli.  I have to study to keep
+ahead of them."
+
+But he had been talking of the human system!
+
+She couldn't appear to pin him down of course.  She had to let him
+range where he would, contenting herself with giving the talk a little
+push this way or that when the opportunity offered.  She encouraged him
+to talk of his childhood and youth, to which he was nothing loath.  He
+unconsciously drew her a picture of a willful, jealous, destructive
+boy, a little monument of selfishness.  There was a bad crack in his
+nature.  He hated beauty, moral and physical, but particularly physical
+beauty.  Pen marked the pained sneer with which his eyes followed the
+stalwart young steward who carried away the cups.  Riever had to have
+handsome servants to maintain his position, but their comeliness was a
+perpetual reproach to him.  No wonder he had hated Don Counsell from
+the first, Pen thought.  She guessed darkly that Riever was the kind
+that pursues beautiful women only to hurt them.
+
+He had been telling her with a laugh of the torments to which new boys
+were subjected in the fashionable school he had attended.  One poor
+little wretch it appeared had been driven by his persecutors to the
+point of attempting suicide.
+
+"Weren't you sorry then?" asked Pen.
+
+"No!" he said.  "I had to go through the mill when I came.  It wasn't
+my fault that this kid had a soft streak in him.  Besides conscience is
+only another name for weak-mindedness.  I made up my mind early that
+I'd never be sorry for anything I did.  A strong man laughs at
+conscience."
+
+Pen thought: "Funny kind of strength!"
+
+This was all very well but what good did it do her?  They might talk
+for a month of mornings without her getting any further.  And she had
+not a day to spare.  How was she to get facts?  The obvious thing would
+be to bribe his servants, to have his effects searched and so on.  This
+was impossible for Pen.  She was ready to despair of ever bridging the
+chasm between surmise and fact.
+
+The motor-boat which had taken Pendleton ashore, had proceeded on to
+the Island for the mail.  It was now to be seen returning.  This was
+Riever's own private mail service.  On the day of his coming, deciding
+that the regular mail was too slow, he had instituted a double
+automobile service between Absolom's Island and Baltimore.  Twice a day
+by this means he received his letters and the New York papers,
+particularly the papers.  Pen had already marked with what a curious
+eagerness he awaited the New York papers.
+
+When the mail-bag was brought to him now he said after a momentary
+hesitation:
+
+"Put it in the saloon."
+
+Pen noted the eager roll of his eyes towards the bag.  There was
+something in there that he desired to see even more than he wished to
+cultivate her company.  With the idea of seeing the thing through, she
+said carelessly:
+
+"May I see a New York paper?"
+
+"Certainly," he said, and had the bag brought back.  It was emptied out
+on the seat beside him.  He handed Pen a paper.
+
+She opened it and feigned to read.  At first he made believe to ignore
+the balance of the contents of the bag, and sat there as if awaiting
+her pleasure.  But he was uneasy.  His feet moved; his hands twitched.
+Finally as Pen showed no signs of losing interest in her sheet, he
+picked up another paper and opened it with hands that trembled a little.
+
+Pen found that she could not watch him from where she sat.  He held his
+paper up between them.  She lowered hers and rose.  He was all
+attention.
+
+"This hasn't got what I want?" she said.  "May I see another?"
+
+Without waiting for him to hand it to her she picked up another paper
+and seated herself on the divan with only the mail matter between them.
+From this point of vantage she could watch him very well without
+appearing to.
+
+He glanced over his sheet and she over hers.  "Glancing," however, does
+not convey the strained intentness with which he was searching the news
+columns.  Pen observed at once that it was not the Counsell case that
+interested him.  That still occupied the most prominent position on the
+first page but his eyes merely skated over it.  It was something else
+he was looking for.  He turned the page and his intent eyes traveled it
+column by column.
+
+On the third page they came to a stop.  Pen saw his grasp tighten on
+the paper until the edges of his thumb nails turned white.  A little
+knot of muscle stood out on his jaw.  Unfortunately Pen could not see
+his eyes, but from the extraordinary tenseness of his attitude she
+guessed the look in them.  Whatever it was he read it was brief.  He
+relaxed; a long breath escaped him.  He let the paper fall and turned
+to Pen.  There was a new brightness in his face.  Certain lines of
+anxiety were smoothed out.  Cynical satisfaction was writ large there.
+He all but laughed in his relief.  He made no further pretense of
+reading the paper, but lit a fresh cigar and cocking it up between his
+lips puffed away like a man well pleased with the world.
+
+As well as she could Pen had marked in her mind the spot on the third
+page where his glance had rested.  It was the New York _Courier_ he was
+reading.  She had to be careful not to betray her hand.  She made
+believe to go on searching through the paper she had.  Finally she let
+it fall.
+
+"It's not here either," she said.
+
+"What's that?" asked Riever comfortably.
+
+"One of the New York papers has a fashion department they call 'A Daily
+Hint from Paris'.  But I don't know which one it is."
+
+"Can't say that I ever noticed it myself," said Riever grinning.  "But
+try the Courier."
+
+This was more than she had dared hope for.  She took the paper from him
+in a hand that she forced to be steady.  For awhile she turned the
+pages in the haphazard way that one searches through a strange
+newspaper.  Riever meanwhile was sitting beside her regarding his cigar
+with half closed eyes, and making a little humming sound between his
+teeth.  Clearly he was intent upon thoughts that were miles away from
+her.
+
+Pen ventured to let her gaze rest on the third page.  The make-up of
+that page, news and advertisements, was such that she had little
+difficulty in picking out what she was looking for.  There was but the
+one short item of news near the bottom of the page in the middle
+column.  This is what Pen read:
+
+  EAST-SIDE GANGSTER MISSING
+
+
+"A girl who gave her name as Blanche Paglar of ---- Elizabeth St.,
+became hysterical at police headquarters this morning upon being
+informed by the police that there was no clue to the disappearance of
+Henry, alias Spike Talley, 24, same address.  The girl had previously
+reported that Talley had been missing since the night of May 27th.  She
+received scant sympathy from the police who told her that if the young
+man had met with foul play it was probably in the pursuit of his own
+nefarious occupations.  Spike Talley was a leading member of the
+notorious Chick Murphy gang, and is suspected of complicity in half a
+dozen crimes of violence."
+
+Pen turned a little giddy.  Her heart pounded so that she thought
+Riever must hear it.  Dared she credit what this story implied?  Had
+she come upon the key to the whole mystery?  Had she?  Had she?  She
+leaned back in the divan and held the paper up in front of her so that
+he could not see her face.
+
+When her breast quieted down she sternly reminded herself that this was
+but slim evidence on which to build a case.  She might be mistaken
+altogether.  She might be merely reading into the item what she desired
+to find there.  She determined to put it to the test.  But she had to
+wait awhile before she dared trust her voice.
+
+It was Riever who said at last coaxingly: "Put down the paper."
+
+Pen did so.  Her face was perfectly composed now.  Her voice even as
+she said: "Here's a curious little story."
+
+"What's that?" said Riever.
+
+"A girl goes to the police for help in finding her lover.  They laugh
+at her because he was a gangster."
+
+For an instant Riever looked at her like an animal at bay, his teeth
+showing, his eyes senseless with terror.  It was gone in a snap of the
+fingers, but it was enough.
+
+"I guess that's common enough," he said with a laugh.
+
+"What a situation for a story," said Pen.
+
+"Oh yes, if you like that sort of story," he said, flicking the ash off
+his cigar.
+
+Pen said to herself with a swelling breast: "I have made a beginning!"
+No need for her to secure the paper.  Those names and that address were
+etched on her brain.
+
+Riever's start of terror had been due to a reflex action of which he
+was scarcely conscious.  He did not suspect that he had betrayed
+himself.  He must have argued that it was impossible that Pen should
+connect him with that item in the paper.  Her speaking of it could only
+have been a coincidence.  So his satisfaction was undisturbed.  They
+talked on about all sorts of things.  But Pen was wild to get into
+action now.
+
+Her opportunity came when one of Riever's men came to ask if he had any
+orders for the boat.  It was returning to the Island to get the regular
+mail which arrived about noon.
+
+Pen said to Riever: "This would be a good chance for me to get my
+shopping done.  If I might..."
+
+"Certainly," said Riever.  "If you must.  May I come too?"
+
+This was awkward.  It could not be evaded though.  "It's your boat,"
+said Pen, smiling.
+
+"Yours for this trip."
+
+"Charmed to have you," said Pen.  "... But you can't look over my
+shoulder when I'm making my poor little purchases."
+
+"I'll wait in the boat for you."
+
+The slim mahogany tender which lay alongside had cost as much as many a
+well-to-do man's cruiser.  Nothing like her had ever cleaved the waters
+of the Pocomico.  She had the speed of a railway train.  Pen was handed
+in to a little sheltered nook in the stern.  Riever sank down beside
+her and they were off with a leap, throwing a wall of water back from
+either side of the bow.
+
+But Pen was oblivious to their passage.  Her glance was far withdrawn.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" asked Riever.
+
+"My shopping," she answered instantly.  "It's quite a problem.  There's
+so little to choose from in the Island stores."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to go up to Baltimore for a day?" he asked.
+
+This was what Pen had been angling for.  "I might like it," she said,
+"but..." she finished with a shrug.
+
+"Well, there are the cars running up and down empty every day.  Why not
+go up Monday morning?"
+
+"Monday is wash-day," said Pen.
+
+"Tuesday, then."
+
+Pen considered.  "All right," she said.  "I would like to go on
+Tuesday."
+
+"That's settled then."
+
+Pen saw from his look that he meant to come with her.  That was to be
+expected.  She must adjust her plans accordingly.
+
+In three minutes they were at the wharf in front of the store.  It was
+like magic.  The _Pee Bee_ took a good twenty minutes to do it.  Pen
+stepped out, a sailor was sent up to the Post-office, and Riever
+remained in the boat, a target for curious stares.  He hated to be
+stared at, and he presently gave the word for the tender to wait out in
+the stream.
+
+The store was a rambling structure added to from time to time as
+business increased.  The clerks were engaged in a continual marathon
+from one distant shelf to another.  The three young men contended for
+the privilege of waiting on Pen, who was a prime favorite even with the
+touchy Island people who by turns resented and laughed at her father.
+Pen was entirely unaffected and friendly, quite unconscious of her own
+reserve.  In short she kept alive a fine old tradition of gentility.
+She was "Pen" to the three youths and they were "George" and "Stanley"
+and "Roy" to her, yet a gulf separated them.
+
+In order to keep up her role of shopper Pen was obliged to purchase a
+chip basket which she did not want, and a number of articles which she
+could use of course, but which she had not intended to get that
+morning.  Her purpose in coming to the Island was to send off a letter.
+She could not write it in the post-office because the sailor from the
+_Alexandra_ was waiting there, so she bought paper and envelope in the
+store and wrote it on the counter.
+
+She had been revolving the opening sentences on her way over.  So
+concentrated was she upon her task that the bustle, the running to and
+fro in the store disturbed her not a whit.  Through the open door she
+could see the mahogany tender floating out in the creek with Riever
+sitting in his place smoking one of the endless succession of cigars,
+and she knew she was safe from interruption in that direction.
+
+
+"Dear Blanche Paglar:
+
+"I read in the New York _Courier_ this morning of your search for Spike
+Talley.  Perhaps I can give you a clue.  I cannot hold out any hope to
+you that he is still alive, but anyway I suppose it would be a relief
+to you to learn the truth.  But I don't want to deceive you.  I am sure
+of nothing yet.  I have only a suspicion.  I thought if we could put
+what little I know with what you know we might clear up the whole
+thing."
+
+
+Having written this much Pen paused and reread it with a frown.  It
+sounded too cut and dried.  She wished to win this unknown girl's
+heart.  It was nothing to Pen at that moment that Blanche had loved a
+gangster and was perhaps herself a criminal.  All Pen considered was
+that Blanche had lost her lover, and that Pen's own lover was in
+terrible danger.  That made them sisters.  She continued, from the
+heart:
+
+
+"I am a girl like yourself.  I understand much that was not written in
+the paper.  Like yourself I love somebody who is threatened by a worse
+fate than that which I suppose may have overtaken your friend.  And at
+the hands of the same man.  We ought to be friends.  We ought to help
+one another."
+
+
+Pen's eyelids prickled as she wrote this.  She forced down the emotion,
+and continued more soberly:
+
+
+"I dare not write all I suspect to one who is still a stranger to me.
+Will you meet me in Baltimore on Tuesday at noon?  I shall be waiting
+for you in front of the notion counter in Douglas' department store.
+Anybody will direct you to it.  I don't know what you look like of
+course, but you may recognize me by a blue silk turban stitched with
+red.  My hair and eyes are dark.  You may take a good look at me before
+you make yourself known, and decide if I look like a person who can be
+trusted.  Don't speak to me if I am not alone.  Even if I am alone I
+may be watched, and it would be better for you to greet me like an old
+friend.  I will enclose a post-office order for fifteen dollars to pay
+your fare to Baltimore and back."
+
+
+Pen was afraid to put her name to this.  She hated anonymity, and
+realized that it would raise a justifiable suspicion in the other
+girl's breast, but within the past few days the newspapers had made the
+name of Pendleton Broome almost as famous as that of Donald Counsell.
+How could she take the risk?  Suppose her letter ended in the
+newspapers?  She turned hot and cold at the thought.  Even the
+post-mark Absolom's Island would give too much away.  But she had to
+take that chance.  She couldn't put down a false name either.  She
+finally signed her letter: "Your Would-be Friend."
+
+When she finally held her letter enclosed, and addressed in her hand,
+her heart failed her for a moment.  "It will only arouse her
+suspicions," she thought.  "She'll never come!"  Pen steeled her
+resolution.  "In that case I'll go to her!"
+
+Pen got a blank check from one of the clerks, filled it out and cashed
+it.  There went her chance of the new hat she needed so badly.  Leaving
+her purchases in the store for the moment she went on up the road to
+the post-office.  The store looked out over the waters of Back Creek.
+You went up a little rise and found yourself looking out over the river
+from the other side of the Island.  The post-office stood on the corner
+where the road turned up-stream.  It was only a couple of hundred yards
+from the store but outside the range of Riever's vision from the tender.
+
+The mail bus had just arrived and a certain proportion of the Islanders
+were hanging about outside the little building, waiting for the
+distribution.  During this interval the door was always locked but Pen
+enjoyed privileges there.  She knocked, and the post-master, Sammy
+Cupples, seeing who it was, made haste to open.
+
+She made out her application for the money-order at the little desk in
+the corner, and Sammy paused long enough in the work of distribution to
+issue it, so that it might get in that day's mail.  The bus went back
+immediately.  It would reach Baltimore some time before night, and the
+letter would be delivered in New York the first thing Monday morning.
+When it dropped into the mail-bag a tight hand was laid on Pen's heart
+for a moment and she would have given anything to have it back.  But
+the die was cast.
+
+Pen returned to the store.  One of the youths carried her basket out on
+the wharf.  The tender swept around in a graceful circle and came
+alongside.  Riever stood up to hand Pen in.  The Island boy's eyes
+goggled a little at the famous man.  Riever looked his worst when he
+showed his yellow teeth in a loverly smile.  Pen shuddered at him
+inwardly, thinking: "You would not be smiling if you knew what I had
+just done!"
+
+As soon as the man came with the mail they sped back to Broome's Point.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MOONLIGHT
+
+It was night and Pen with her indomitable carriage was trudging along
+the road that led straight back between the fields.  Under her arm was
+the inevitable grass bag.  Chin up and back very straight there was
+always a sort of challenge in Pen's gait.  As a child she had been just
+the same, one of those adorable little fighters who conceal a heart as
+tender as love itself.  There was a photograph of her at the age of
+three with a look wistful, proud, and astonished at meanness.  She
+still had that look.
+
+A fantastic tangle of wild grape, trumpet vine, elder bush and
+sassafras completely hid the rail fences and hemmed her in on either
+hand, and an occasional pointed cedar or seedling cherry rose against
+the night sky.  The middle of the road and the screen of leafage on one
+side were drenched with moonlight.  The moon dangled in the sky like a
+hanging lamp: one could see into the depths beyond her.
+
+Pen walked along with her face up to the moon in an attitude of
+surrender.  Her face was haggard with emotion.  All day she was obliged
+to wear a mask, to weigh every word she uttered.  What a relief it was
+at last to let go, to let the moon have its way with her, to bathe in
+her silver stream.  Relief in a sense but hardly pleasure, for when she
+let go she was so defenseless, so quivering that the stream of beauty
+hurt her.  It enervated her so, she was terrified lest she might not be
+able to gird herself up again.
+
+For she knew her respite was only momentary.  She longed for and
+dreaded what awaited her at the end of her walk.  She couldn't give
+herself up to Don as she could to the moon.  She had to put on another
+mask for him.  A mask of cheer.  He was her charge that she had to
+watch over and care for and beguile into contentment.  The fact that he
+hotly resented being a charge on her did not make her task any easier.
+They had been getting on each other's nerves a good deal.
+
+Ever and anon as she walked, she glanced over her shoulder uneasily
+aware that a man could follow her quite close under the dark side of
+the green tangle, without her being aware.
+
+At the corner of the last field on the left she vaulted over the low
+bars.  Inside a figure rose into the moonlight and a voice whispered
+her name:
+
+"Pen!"
+
+She was horribly startled.  "Drop down again!" she whispered sharply.
+"Don't come after me until I am half way across the field."
+
+He obeyed sullenly.  Pen walked on across the field with a sore heart.
+She had made him angry now.  All day she lived for the moment of
+meeting and now it was spoiled.
+
+She headed diagonally across the field to that point in the woods which
+was nearest his camp.  She could walk but slowly because the ground was
+so rough, old corn land that had been allowed to go to grass with the
+hills unharrowed.  She would not look back until she was nearly across.
+A man's figure was rising over the swell of the field behind her.
+Anxiety attacked her.  Suppose it was not Don but somebody who had
+followed her down the road.  What would Don do?  She dreaded to hear
+the sounds of a struggle.  Don could take care of himself of course,
+but it would be the end of their secret.  So well had that secret been
+kept that not one of all the searchers at Broome's Point now suspected
+that Don was still on the estate.
+
+Pen waited alongside the fence that bounded the far side of the field.
+It was Don, so her anxiety was relieved on that score.  But he did not
+come to her.  A few yards away he leaned back with his elbows on the
+top rail of the fence and gazed out across the moonlit field, making a
+perfect silhouette of masculine soreness.
+
+"I brought you some supper," ventured Pen.
+
+"Thanks," he said ungraciously.
+
+"Won't you eat?"
+
+"Not hungry, thanks."
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked with a touch of defiance.  She could not
+be meek, even with him.
+
+"You spoke to me like a dog!" he burst out.  "Down Fido!"
+
+"I'm sorry," she murmured.  "But you startled me so.  You see I was
+thinking maybe someone was following me in the road."
+
+"I just went a little way to meet you," he grumbled.  "Nice welcome I
+got!"
+
+Having said she was sorry, Pen could not humble herself further.  She
+remained silent.
+
+"I suppose you're thinking I'm a thankless beast," he went on presently.
+
+"No," said Pen.
+
+"Well I am!" he said.  "I appreciate what you do for me.  Good God,
+that's just the trouble.  You heap favors on me!  You've got me on the
+rack!"
+
+They had been over this so often!
+
+"Well, I'm sick of it, too," Pen burst out as bitterly as he.  "You're
+always trying to make out that I do things for you just to make you
+feel inferior!  I hate to be benevolent.  I never am.  But what else
+could I do under the circumstances?  Or you?  Why can't you take it for
+granted?"
+
+"You mean you'd do as much for anybody?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+This of course in his perfect inconsistency, hurt him worse than what
+had gone before.  He dug his chin into his breast and relapsed into
+silence.
+
+Pen yearned over him.  She loved him so for his male roughness, his
+wrongheadedness, his school-boy pride.  He was so absolutely different
+from herself, both weaker and stronger.  It was circumstances which had
+given her the advantage over him; he was in a false position.  She
+exulted in it a little however she might protest to the contrary.  It
+is sweet to have the ascendancy, even in love.  And she could dimly
+foresee other circumstances in which she would be most terribly at his
+mercy.
+
+She made overtures.  "I'm hungry," she said.
+
+But the storm was still brewing in his breast.  "A couple more days of
+this and I'll go clean off my head!" he said savagely.
+
+"How about me?" said Pen.
+
+"You don't have to squat under the bushes all day."
+
+"I have other troubles."
+
+"I have things to bear that you don't know anything about.  I have
+never spoken of it."
+
+Instantly Pen, who had been feeling so pleasantly sure of herself,
+turned hot with jealousy.  There was some other woman out in the world.
+Of course there would be!  He was tormented because he couldn't
+communicate with her.  Because he couldn't assure her of his innocence.
+How could she find out about her for sure?
+
+"If you'd tell me what it is," she said, schooling her voice, "perhaps
+I could help."
+
+"Not in this matter," he said with a bitter little laugh.
+
+Then she was miserably sure.  Nevertheless she persisted, as the
+nightingale is supposed to press her breast against a thorn.  "I've
+often wondered why you don't allow me to write to some of your best
+friends.  Those you can trust I mean.  The letters could be worded in
+such a way that they'd mean nothing if they fell into the wrong hands."
+
+"I've no one to write to," he said.
+
+Pen thought: "Of course he wouldn't trust another woman to write to
+her," and was exquisitely unhappy.
+
+"Any news?" Don asked gloomily.
+
+"No," said Pen.  She had previously determined not to raise his hopes
+by telling him about Blanche Paglar until something had come of it.
+
+There was a long silence between them, and Pen became wretcheder and
+wretcheder.  When she could stand it no longer she put the bag down
+beside the fence and said in an offhand tone:
+
+"Well ... I must be getting back ... I'll come again to-morrow night."
+
+She started to walk away with her sedate air, but a little quicker
+perhaps than would suggest perfect calmness.
+
+Before she had taken three steps he came after her.  Pen broke into a
+run.  He overtook her.  Ah! if he had only taken her in his arms!  But
+he only circled about her, spreading out his arms to bar her way.
+
+"Pen, _Pen_, don't leave me!" he said imploringly.  "That would be the
+last straw! ... Don't leave me to brood over my own hatefulness."
+
+The pain in his voice arrested her.  She forgot her own pain.  As in a
+flash she had a clairvoyant glimpse of what he must be going through
+day after day, the resolute young man compelled to skulk in the woods,
+while his name was bandied about with the stigma of murder upon it.
+
+"I'm a fool!" she said with a shaky little laugh.  "To get sore ... I
+won't go."
+
+"Oh, Pen, you're so good to me!" he groaned.  "I'm a stubborn brute,
+Pen, I can't thank you properly.  But Pen, I feel as if you were
+heaping a load on me that I'd never be able to struggle from under!
+But I ought not to feel that way, Pen."
+
+Ever since he had got hold of that little name he could scarcely
+address five words to her without using it, and every time he spoke it
+he caressed it.  Pen was reassured.
+
+"Don't worry about how you ought to feel," she murmured.  "Much better
+for us to quarrel than to make pretenses to each other.  Besides a lot
+of that talk about doing things for people and earning their gratitude
+is false.  A person has really no right to put another person under a
+debt of gratitude."
+
+"The truth is, I'm afraid of you," he grumbled.
+
+It was delicious to her to have him softened and faltering like this.
+"I'm afraid of you, too," she confessed.  "How silly we both are!"
+
+For a moment or two they were wildly and unreasonably happy, standing
+there in the bland moonlight close together but not touching.  His face
+was in the shadow but Pen could feel his eyes stabbing her out of the
+dark.  Her own went down.  They were like reeds shaken in the same
+gust.  In that moment Pen knew that whatever bonds might be upon him
+out in the world, he was hers.  Still he did not speak; he did not draw
+her to him.  In the end she had to wrench herself away from the
+magnetic attraction of his body, or else she must have flung herself
+into his arms.
+
+"Let's walk," she said hurriedly.  "We're safe enough in this
+out-of-the-way corner.  You must need exercise.  We'll circle round the
+field.  Over in the corner there's a path leading down to an arm of
+Back creek where Dad keeps his boat in the winter."
+
+Don came down to earth with a sigh.  He had a curious way, when his
+thoughts annoyed him, of shaking his head like a dog, to clear it.
+Without saying anything he tied the jute bag to an overhanging branch
+out of reach of four-footed prowlers, and came along with Pen.
+
+They kept to the fence line, silent for the most part.  Their breasts
+were oppressed by moonlight, that high, pure medium which nevertheless
+stirs us so poignantly.  The moon herself is all very well in her way,
+a lovely lamp in the dark, but one can stare at the moon all night
+without being transported.  One must turn one's back on the moon to
+experience her magic.  It is the strange light she casts on the face of
+our mother Earth, and Earth's smile under moonlight, soft, subtle and
+infinitely suggestive, that thrill us, that disquiet us, that unlock
+our spirits.  On the one hand as they walked the field lay spread with
+a bloomy, gossamer coverlet of moonlight; on the other hand the
+swelling tree masses rose in rich velvety blackness under a lazulite
+sky.
+
+Their two shadows soberly preceded them, always with a narrow space of
+moonlight between.  Pen resented that little gap.  She had forgotten
+about the supposed other woman, or if she remembered she no longer
+cared.  She lived in the moment only; there was no more past, no
+future.  She was in the grip of sensations that scarcely permitted her
+to breathe.  Yet she had to conceal from him those sighs with which she
+sought to relieve her breast.  Sometimes she fell behind a step just
+for the satisfaction of looking at him without his knowing, at the way
+his hair curled at the nape of his neck, at his flat, straight back, at
+the curious grace of his level walk.  He was wearing an old pair of
+trousers and a shirt of khaki that she had brought him as being less
+conspicuous in the woods than his own white clothes.  The thin garments
+betrayed his beauty to her.
+
+The moon was high in the sky and their shadows were short at their
+feet.  Pen beheld a curious thing.  The dewy grass refracting the
+strong moonlight made a silvery nimbus around the heads of the two of
+them.
+
+"Look!" she said with her shaky little laugh.  "We've been canonized."
+
+"Not me," he said.  "They just let me walk under your halo."
+
+Having circled round two sides of the field, they climbed over another
+pole gate and were swallowed up in the woods.  Instantly the silence
+wrapped them as in a cloak, and the heavy air became charged with a
+curious significance.  High over head they glimpsed the moon pacing
+with them over the tree-tops.  She splashed the trunks fantastically,
+and occasionally lay down a bar of silver on the path, but for the most
+part the underworld was black, black, black; a crouching blackness that
+held its breath as if in preparation for a spring.  The path was
+well-beaten but narrow.  They had to walk in single file, Pen ahead.
+
+"I'm glad you're here," murmured Pen.
+
+"It's a fearsome sort of place," he said.  "It was not like this the
+other night we walked through the woods."
+
+"These woods have not been cut out," said Pen.  "The old presences have
+never been disturbed."
+
+Finally the path with a sharp turn brought them abruptly out under the
+open sky again.  It was as if something had been lifted off their
+heads.  They had come to a low bank at the head of a straight, narrow
+arm of water thrust into the heart of the pines.  A great bird arose
+from below them and passed away like a shadow with a soft swishing of
+wings.  The path ended in a shaky little wharf with a single plank laid
+upon it.  They stepped gingerly out upon it hand in hand, and stood
+looking down the reach.  The South wind passed high above their heads
+and the surface of the water was perfectly unruffled.
+
+At the moment the moon was looking down the straight arm so squarely
+one might have said she had cleft the opening herself with her silver
+blade of light.  Down at the end of the narrow arm they had the sense
+of a wider body of water running at right angles, a pearly, fairy-like
+strait.  On the point which separated the two bodies of water stood a
+little white house gleaming wanly in the moonlight.  In a window of the
+house, a curious note in that dreamy world of opal and pearl, shone an
+insistent yellow light.
+
+"Surely real people can't live there," murmured Don.
+
+"The worst kind, unfortunately," said Pen.  "That's where the oystermen
+go to get drunk."
+
+They retraced their steps up the bank.  When they trod firm earth
+again, Pen repossessed herself of her hand.
+
+"Where now?" asked Don.
+
+"There's no place to go but back."
+
+"Not yet," he pleaded.  "Let's stay here awhile.  There's plenty of
+time.  There are no mosquitoes to-night."
+
+An old skiff had been dragged up on top of the bank and turned over.
+
+"Sit here," he urged.
+
+Blaming herself for her weakness, she sat upon it with her hands in her
+lap.  The moonlight was strong upon her.  There was a wall of
+undergrowth at her back.  Her face and hands stood out against it
+sharply.  Don dropped to the ground at her feet.
+
+"It's damp there," she objected.
+
+"Can't see you when I sit beside you," he said.  "I can from here.
+With only your face and hands showing out of your black dress you look
+like a spirit."
+
+"A lost spirit!" she said with her little laugh.
+
+"Oh Pen!" he said in distress.  "Why should you be unhappy?"
+
+"I hate the moon!" she said.  "It makes a fool of me!"
+
+His touch of sympathy unnerved her.  That and the glamorous destructive
+light that would not let her breast be.  The last of her defenses
+collapsed.  In spite of herself the tears welled up in her eyes and
+brimmed over.  She lowered her head to hide them, but he caught the
+sparkle of the drops as they fell.  It electrified him.  He scrambled
+to his knees.
+
+"Pen!  Pen!" he whispered brokenly.
+
+She covered her face with her hands.  He dragged them down, and crushed
+them under his own hands on her knees.
+
+"Pen!" he gasped.  "It breaks my heart to see you!  What is the matter?"
+
+She strained away from him.  "Nothing!" she said crossly.  "I'm not the
+sort that cries!"
+
+"But you're crying now.  I see your tears!"
+
+"It's nothing.  I'm just nervous.  Don't notice me."
+
+"Oh Pen, I love you so!" he groaned.  "It kills me to see your tears!"
+
+She looked at him with a kind of horror.
+
+He dropped his head in her lap.  "There it's out!" he groaned.  "All
+evening I've been fighting against it.  Every night I've been with you.
+I swore I wouldn't tell you.  But here I am ... just like a baby.  God
+knows I'll regret it to-morrow!"
+
+"But why?" she gasped.
+
+"Because it drives me wild to think of bringing unhappiness into your
+life.  I'd sooner jump off the wharf yonder.  It's unmanly to tell you
+now!"
+
+"Blessed unmanliness!" whispered Pen, brooding over him.
+
+Presently she jerked her head up as if she needed more air, more light.
+The moon shone in her wet face.  It was transfigured.
+
+He was still humbled over her knees.  "This isn't the way I wanted to
+come to the woman I love," he said bitterly.  "I've nothing to offer
+you ... less than nothing ..."
+
+"Do you want to buy me or to love me," she murmured with soft reproach.
+
+He scarcely heard her.  "It is impossible for you to respect a man who
+is as dependent on you as a baby!"
+
+Pen put her cheek in his hair.  "Foolish one!  What has respect to do
+with it?"
+
+"You can only be sorry for me!"
+
+Her hands turned over and found his face.  "Foolish!  Foolish!
+Foolish!" she murmured.  "You must have got your idea of loving out of
+books! ... How selfish you are!"
+
+He raised his head, struck by the word.
+
+Her voice deepened.  "Don't you understand how sweet it has been for me
+to work for you; to lie for you; to steal food out of the house?  Why
+do you begrudge it to me? ... Oh, sometimes I could almost wish you
+_had_ committed a murder so I could go with you and be disgraced with
+you!"
+
+"Pen! ... Pen!" he cried amazed and full of delight.  Then added
+quaintly in a voice of reproof: "You're talking wildly!"
+
+Pen laughed deep in her throat.  She slipped off the boat to the ground
+beside him, where she could wreathe her arms about him, and hide her
+face on his shoulder.
+
+"You're only a man," she murmured laughing and passionate.  "What do
+you know about love? ... Ah, but only let me love you and I will be
+content!"
+
+"You'll see whether I can love or not," he said, piqued.
+
+"Keep telling me," she murmured.  "My ears are starving for it!"
+
+"I can't tell you to order," he grumbled, manlike.  "It must come of
+itself."
+
+But she knew from the timbre of his voice, from his arms, from the
+adoring droop of his head, and was content.
+
+He held her a little away from him that he might see her better.  Pen
+yielded up her soul to him through her eyes.
+
+"Good God! how beautiful you are!" he whispered sharply.
+
+Their lips came together.  They achieved forgetfulness.
+
+Even lovers must come back to earth.  Pen drew away from him.  "The
+dawn will surprise us," she murmured.
+
+He consulted his watch.  "Only half-past two."
+
+"We must go."
+
+"Oh, no! no!"
+
+"Well, we must begin to go," she amended.  "I can't leave you quickly."
+
+She sat on the ground as Diana must have sat, her legs folded against
+her, her waist curving to preserve her equilibrium, both round arms up
+and her fingers busy with her hair.
+
+"How beautiful you are so," he murmured.  "Don't move!"
+
+She laughed.  "Help me up," she commanded, extending him her hands.
+
+As he pulled her to her feet he was for enfolding her again, but she
+put her hands up between them.  "Not now!  I want to get away from you
+a little."
+
+"Pen!" he cried reproachfully.
+
+She laughed.  "Dearest!  I just mean you have numbed me ... I must get
+away from you in order to realize you."
+
+"You soon have enough of me," he grumbled.
+
+"Somebody must be the first to stop."
+
+"But you do love me, don't you?"
+
+"Not always in the same way."
+
+"You do!  You do!  I know it now!"
+
+"Then why worry? ... Come, it's a long way back.  We can talk as we go."
+
+"But wait a minute, Pen.  No, I won't touch you if you don't want me to
+... I want to tell you something.  Oh, if I could only tell you right!
+... What this wonderful thing means to me!"
+
+"Sh!  Dearest!  It can't be told.  It simply can't!"
+
+"But I must try."
+
+"You're not sorry then that you told me?"
+
+"No, by God!  I don't deserve this ... but I'm not sorry.  That was
+just childish pride ... If you really are the better man of the two I
+might as well make up my mind to it!"
+
+Pen laughed.  "But I'm not! ... Oh, my tongue is quicker than yours.  I
+can tangle you all up in words.  But you have a simplicity!  I sit at
+your feet!"
+
+"Pen!"
+
+"Come on, I shouldn't have told you that! ... Come on, I feel as light
+as air, now!"  She whirled around and gave his elbows a little squeeze.
+"Isn't it blessed to be relieved of that horrible constraint that lay
+on us."  She was off ahead again.  "I can say whatever I like to you
+now without thinking ... I expect I'll shock you sometimes.  I'm no
+lady!"
+
+"I guess I can stand it," he said grinning.
+
+Pen had a hundred questions to ask as they went.  The most trifling
+details of his childhood were important to her.
+
+"Have you any photographs of yourself as a child?" she asked eagerly.
+"How I should love them!"
+
+"All ages," he said lightly.  Suddenly his voice became embittered.  "I
+suppose they're in the hands of the police."
+
+"We'll get them back!" said Pen confidently.
+
+He stopped in the path.  "Good God, Pen!  _What is before us_?  I had
+forgotten it!"
+
+"You are going to clear yourself."
+
+"But if I shouldn't be able to?"
+
+"Whatever happens to you, I share it," she said quickly.
+
+"But I've got to take care of you!"
+
+Ignoring this, she resumed her questions.  Gradually she drew him back
+into a lighter mood.
+
+"Haven't you any brothers and sisters, Don?"
+
+"No, I was an only child."
+
+"I, too.  It's unnatural.  I mean to have four."
+
+He pulled her to him.  "Oh, my Pen!" he said a little hoarsely.  "My
+heart almost stops beating at the thought!"
+
+She freed herself.  "Bear!" she said.  "I didn't invite you to assist
+me in bringing up my family!"
+
+"You've got to have some assistance," he said wickedly.
+
+She changed the subject.  "I suppose you've been in love dozens of
+times," she said.
+
+"Not like this.  Flirtations."
+
+"Oh, the last time is always the only time," she said mockingly.
+
+"Well, how about yourself?" he parried.
+
+"Not a flirtation!" said Pen ruefully.  "Not the least little bit of a
+one.  Only dreams."
+
+"The men were afraid of you," said Don sagely.  "It takes courage to
+make up to a girl like you."
+
+"Conceit!" said Pen ... "Tell me about your flirtations."
+
+"I forget," he said warily.
+
+"Well, the first one.  You couldn't forget that."
+
+"No, I don't mean to tell you," he said coolly.  He groped for his
+words.  "You're the only woman who ever mattered a damn to me.  If you
+don't know that now, you will know it ... And it isn't that I want to
+make myself out any better than I am.  Pretty poor average sort ... But
+I won't tell you.  I have a feeling that you're the sort to bedevil me
+into telling you things with a laugh, and then store them up and brood
+over them and magnify them."
+
+Pen sent him a curious glance through her lashes.  "Good gracious!
+You're cleverer than I thought!" she said in a tone divided between
+mockery and pique.
+
+By the time they got out of the woods the moon had traveled a good bit
+towards the West.  Now it almost hung over the taller splotch of black
+that marked the trees surrounding the big house.
+
+Don said: "Every night as soon as it grows dark I come out of my hole
+and lean on the fence and watch the house and wonder what you are doing
+inside.  Why is it I never see a light in any of the windows facing
+this way?"
+
+"It just happens that none of those rooms are used," Pen said.  "In the
+main house the back drawing-room and the guest room have windows facing
+this way, and in the kitchen wing there is the back kitchen and two
+servants' rooms upstairs....  After this every night I'll put a light
+in one of the servants' rooms to tell you all is well.  And when it
+goes out you'll know I'm starting.  And if it goes out and comes on
+again you'll know I'm prevented from coming."
+
+"That would be bad news," he said.
+
+"We might get up a regular code of signals," Pen went on.  "Suppose
+there was danger, and I couldn't come to warn you.  Suppose I wanted to
+tell you to change your camp."
+
+"We'd have to fix on some spot beforehand so you would know where to
+find me."
+
+"That's the difficulty.  I don't know any place safer than this.  What
+place would be safe if they took it into their heads to search the
+woods? ... There is a safe place though, that I have thought of."
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"In the house itself."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed.
+
+"If I could once get you inside we could snap our fingers at them."
+
+"How about the servants?"
+
+"I wouldn't tell them.  Aunt Maria never goes upstairs.  I tend to the
+upstairs myself.  The third floor of the house is never visited at all."
+
+"Oh Pen, I couldn't!"
+
+"Why not?" she demanded.
+
+"To hide behind your skirts like that!"
+
+"I thought you were going to drop that nonsense."
+
+"It dies hard!" he groaned.
+
+"Well, if you're so reluctant to come to my house where I could see you
+as much as I wanted," she said sorely, "I won't ask you unless I am
+forced to ... But if it should be necessary ... Listen! ... I'll put a
+light in each of the rooms over the kitchen.  If you see two lights
+shining this way you are to hide all your things as well as you can,
+and come to the house."
+
+"Where would I meet you?"
+
+"I won't meet you outside.  It would double the risk for the two of us
+to try to get into the house together.  Listen!  Make your way over the
+fields without going near the road.  Give the negro cabin a wide berth.
+When you are abreast of the big house strike for the evergreen hedge
+that bounds that side of the grounds.  You'll find a gap in it, broken
+by the wind.  You know how the porch runs around three sides of the
+main building.  At the end of the porch on that side there's a rough
+clump of mock orange bushes.  Behind the bushes you'll find a way into
+the cellar.  That's how I go and come.  I'll be waiting for you in the
+cellar.  Or if I'm not there wait till I come."
+
+"Oh Pen, I hate skulking!"
+
+"I love it!" said Pen.  "If I know I'm in the right.  It's an
+adventure!"
+
+They came to the tree where they had left the grass bag hanging.
+
+"Well..." began Pen.
+
+Don swung her around inside his arm.  "Oh my Pen, how can I let you go
+to-night?" he groaned.
+
+"Ah, don't kiss me any more," she pleaded.  "I don't want to be drowned
+again.  I want to know I'm loving you."
+
+"But I must before I lose you!"
+
+She laid restraining hands on his arms.  "Listen, dear," she murmured.
+"There's something I want to tell you.  From the very bottom of my
+heart it comes.  I love you so much you can make me your slave if you
+want.  But you should have pity on me.  You should help me to keep
+myself separate.  For both our sakes.  If sometimes I seem perverse and
+tricksy to you it is only because of the desperate need I have to keep
+something of myself back.  If I become swallowed up in you as most
+women do in their men you'll tire of me.  I'll lose my flavor for you.
+Let me give myself to you a mouthful at a time.  Don't swallow me
+whole!"
+
+He but dimly understood her.  "I'll try!" he said between a laugh and a
+groan.  "You funny darling child! ... But how can I keep from kissing
+you?"
+
+"I don't want you always to keep from it," Pen said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE TRIP TO TOWN
+
+On Tuesday morning Pen, dressed for town, was breakfasting with her
+father in the high-ceilinged, shabby dining-room.
+
+The elder Pendleton pushed his plate from him and with an
+ostentatiously careless air, took a packet of crisp bills from his
+breast pocket and commenced to count them.  It was hard to get any
+change out of Pen, but this time she laid down her fork and frankly
+stared.
+
+"Where did you get it?" she demanded.
+
+Pendleton exulted in the effect he was creating.  He had rehearsed an
+answer to the inevitable question.  "I didn't steal it, my dear."
+
+Pen refused to be diverted.  "Where did you get it?"
+
+"I sold some lots."
+
+"To Mr. Riever?"
+
+"None other."
+
+"Oh, how could you?" she cried involuntarily.
+
+"And why not, I should like to know?" he demanded, up in arms
+immediately.  Clearly his conscience was bad, though he appeared to
+have reason on his side.
+
+Pen was helplessly silent.
+
+"I consider it an excellent stroke of business every way," Pendleton
+went on, puffing a little.  "It secures his interest in the railway."
+
+"He has no interest in the railway."
+
+"Then why should he buy the lots?"
+
+"He's buying you."
+
+Pendleton gave the bills a flirt.  "Well, I didn't sell myself too
+cheap," he said with maddening complacency.
+
+Pen fumed in silence.
+
+Pendleton began to count off some of the bills.  "I want you to take
+some of this," he said.
+
+"What for?" said Pen.
+
+"To replenish your wardrobe."
+
+"Not a cent!" said Pen indignantly.  Reflecting that she was betraying
+too much heat she added: "I have plenty of clothes for down here."
+
+"Your summer dresses that you make yourself are very pretty, very
+pretty," said Pendleton mollifyingly.  "But I'm sure you must be in
+want of the expensive little appurtenances of a lady's wardrobe; shoes,
+silk stocking, hats, parasols."
+
+"What would I be doing with a parasol at Broome's Point?" demanded Pen
+with a snort of scorn.
+
+"A smart yachting suit would be nice," he said suggestively.
+
+But Pen looked at him so dangerously he made haste to add: "But of
+course you know best.  You know best!"
+
+"Put the money up," said Pen brusquely.
+
+"But my dear...!"
+
+"I refuse to dress myself at Mr. Riever's expense.  The idea is
+revolting."
+
+"You will have to have money in town to-day."
+
+"I have a little.  Enough to buy a pair of white shoes, and materials
+to retrim my last summer's hat.  That will have to do."
+
+"I don't see why you have to go against your obvious interests," he
+complained.
+
+Pen looked at him levelly.  "Let's be frank with each other, Dad.  If
+you have any notion of Mr. Riever and I making a match of it, I beg
+that you will put it out of your head.  The idea is preposterous!"
+
+It made him writhe to have his secret wish dragged out into the crude
+light like this, nevertheless he was bound to fight for it still.  "Why
+is it preposterous?" he demanded bridling.  "He wouldn't be stooping to
+you?"
+
+"Perhaps I consider that I'd be stooping!" said Pen with her chin up.
+
+He ignored it.  "It's only an accident that we are poor.  Remember your
+grandfather had his place at Newport when his grandfather was still
+swinging a pick!"
+
+"That's only an accident, too," said Pen.  "You miss the point.  The
+question is not altogether whether he wants me, but whether I want him."
+
+Pendleton refused to take her seriously.  "Oh, the fatal Broome pride!"
+he murmured.
+
+"He's a divorced man," said Pen wickedly.  Her father held strong views
+on the subject.
+
+"We must not judge," said Pendleton blandly.  "Circumstances alter
+cases.  He may have been more sinned against than sinning."
+
+Pen smiled wryly.  She did not particularly blame her father.  It was
+at poor human nature that she was smiling.
+
+Encouraged by her silence he went on loftily: "Pride is an excellent
+thing in its way.  But it becomes suicidal when you allow it to blind
+you to..."
+
+Pen bluntly interrupted him.  "I wouldn't marry Mr. Riever if he was
+the last man on earth!"
+
+She saw, however, that Pendleton was entirely unconvinced.
+
+Presently she said: "I suppose it is useless to ask you to return that
+money?"
+
+By the way his hand closed over it, by the look of irresponsible
+cupidity that appeared in his eyes, she saw that it was indeed useless.
+
+"Then it ought to be used for necessary repairs to the place," she went
+on.  "If we're going to continue to live here, the house must be
+painted, the roof and the porches mended.  Modern implements ought to
+be got for the farm."
+
+"I will consider all that," he said loftily.
+
+"Better let me take it to town and deposit it," said Pen.  "It will
+make too much talk if you put it in the Island bank."
+
+He shook his head obstinately.  "It will improve our credit locally."
+
+Pen shrugged and let the matter drop.  After all she was not
+implicated.  Men must be left to follow their own blind ways, she told
+herself.
+
+At eight o'clock an automobile was at the door.  Riever's people having
+had the worst places in the road mended at his expense, had brought
+this car down the Neck for his use around the Point.  The millionaire
+resented having to put foot to the common earth any more than he could
+help--or perhaps it would be more correct to say that his entourage
+resented it.  Riever, like all potentates, was largely at the mercy of
+his entourage.  The _Alexandra_ was crowded with "friends,"
+secretaries, servants and persons of undefined status whose sole object
+in life lay in maintaining Riever's unacknowledged state.
+Three-quarters of Pen was appalled at the existence of such a situation
+in a democratic country, but the remaining quarter of her found it
+undeniably pleasant to share in his state.  Everything about Riever
+moved with so beautiful a precision.
+
+For instance, she was carried down to the old steamboat wharf which had
+likewise been mended.  As the automobile turned in front of the wharf
+the speed-boat drew alongside with Riever in it.  They leaped to the
+Island.  As they stepped out of the boat, before them was the car to
+take them to town, waiting with its engine running.  Pen saw at once
+that it was not one of the ordinary cars used to carry Riever's mail
+back and forth, but a vehicle imported for this occasion.  It was an
+astonishing car of foreign make, long and rakish in line with an
+immense aluminum engine hood and a smart, diminutive, coupé body.  In
+other words, it represented unimagined power to carry around two little
+plutocrats; the last word in luxury.  The driver rode outside.
+
+It was Pen's first ride in a superlative car.  The springs were
+miraculous.  One was but faintly aware of wheels underneath.  The body
+swam along as smoothly as a high-bred lady, only curtseying slowly now
+and then to a rut.  It was all slightly unreal to Pen.  As they whirled
+through the village she had glimpses of the staring Islanders.  It was
+only too clear what they were thinking.  When an Island boy and his
+girl went to town together they generally came home married.
+
+It was a clear fresh morning.  Pen would have loved to lean back in her
+cushioned corner and give herself up to the flying panorama through the
+windows.  Nowadays there are few roads left like that in our country.
+The prospect was of a peaceful, long-settled land with nothing garish
+nor raw; not a factory, not a railway, not a rich man's house the whole
+way.  But miles of pine woods, many old farms, a sleepy village now and
+then, glimpses of the blue Bay from high land; a rickety bridge over an
+arm of the Bay.
+
+Unfortunately Riever wanted to talk.  It wore Pen out to talk to him
+because she couldn't be frank.  Real frankness was unknown to Riever,
+though he could be amusing.  His eyes never lost their watchfulness,
+nor his lips their superficial smile.  This morning he was not amusing.
+For several days Pen had been aware that his temper was suffering as a
+result of the continued non-success of his efforts to run down
+Counsell.  To Pen's secret dismay he commenced to talk about it now,
+watching her keenly meanwhile.
+
+"What do you think of the situation at the Point?" he asked.
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Pen.
+
+"Counsell appears to have given us the slip."
+
+Pen said to herself: "I must be bold.  Half measures will never deceive
+him."  She said to him calmly: "I hope he has."
+
+Riever bit his lip.  "I wish I knew what it was about murder that
+appeals to women's imaginations," he sneered.
+
+"About murder, nothing," said Pen coolly.  "Not to this woman.  But no
+true woman could help sympathizing with a man hunted by a pack."
+
+"Even if he was guilty of a foul crime?"
+
+Pen was not to be betrayed into declaring her belief in Don's
+innocence.  "Even if he was guilty," she said.
+
+"Then what about justice?"
+
+"Well, I fancy a woman's idea of justice differs from a man's.  To kill
+for killing gets us nowhere."
+
+"I thought you thought him innocent," said Riever subtly.
+
+"How can one tell?" said Pen.  "The newspapers are so contradictory."
+
+"I haven't noticed it," said Riever.  "If there's any evidence in his
+favor it hasn't been brought to my attention."
+
+Pen seeing that she had made a slip, adroitly shifted to new ground.
+"That's just it," she said.  "The newspapers are so clearly prejudiced,
+you can't help but feel there is another side to the story."
+
+"How do you suppose he made his getaway?" asked Riever, still watching
+her.  "Every yard of the shore has been searched, every native
+questioned."
+
+"Perhaps he paddled across the Bay," said Pen.  "There are convenient
+railways over on the Eastern shore."
+
+"But we had our men there next day," said Riever.  "And the canoe was
+not found.  No, somebody must be hiding him."
+
+"Very likely," said Pen calmly.
+
+"But there's the reward I offered," said Riever, "You'd think that
+would be tempting."
+
+"Oh, money isn't everything to everybody," said Pen.
+
+"You think maybe some maiden's fancy has been caught by his good
+looks?" he sneered.
+
+Pen looked at him full.  "Oh, do you think he's good-looking?" she said
+with a little air of surprise.
+
+He was disconcerted.  "I?  No!  But I'm no judge.  At college they
+seemed to think him a regular Phoebus Apollo, men and women alike."
+
+Pen carried the war straight into the enemy's camp.  "You did not like
+him at college, did you?"
+
+"He was nothing to me one way or another," Riever said carelessly.  "I
+scarcely ever saw him."
+
+"Liar!" thought Pen.  She said: "I cannot quite understand your
+attitude.  Why are you so bent on running him down.  Is there an old
+score to settle between you two?"
+
+In the smooth mask of his face, Riever's eyes were not pleasant to see.
+"No indeed!" he said with a laugh.  "I am not revengeful.  But Dongan
+was my friend.  I owe it to his memory."
+
+"I appreciate that," said Pen.  "Still, to give up everything, and come
+down here yourself.  To direct the hunt personally."
+
+"Delehanty is in charge, not I," said Riever quickly.
+
+Pen let it go at that.
+
+"As for coming down here," Riever went on, "that was just an impulse.
+I was so shocked at the moment I could think of nothing else ...
+Perhaps it was foolish.  But I can't say I regret it because it has
+made me acquainted with you."
+
+"You are polite," said Pen.
+
+"It's more than that," said Riever.
+
+After awhile he said: "You will not be sorry to see us go, I'm afraid."
+
+A glad cry leaped to Pen's lips: "You are going!" But she caught it in
+time.  "I sha'n't be sorry to see the last of Delehanty and his crew,"
+she said calmly.
+
+"And the rest of us?" he asked.
+
+"It will be hard to settle down into the old dull routine when you are
+gone," she said.
+
+"I might come back," he suggested.
+
+"Father and I would always be happy to see you," said Pen demurely.
+
+Meanwhile they were bowling along the State road at better than forty
+miles an hour, but so smoothly that Pen had no sense of great speed
+except when she happened to catch a glimpse of some astonished face in
+the road.  They had a highly accomplished chauffeur at the wheel and
+the heavy car held her speed up hill and down as steadily as a
+locomotive.  Woods, fields and villages were thrust behind them with no
+sense of effort.
+
+As they drew near to Baltimore Pen began to wonder how she was going to
+get rid of Riever.  He saved her the trouble by saying:
+
+"I have to go to the Hotel Bellevue for a conference.  You'll keep the
+car of course, and load your purchases right into it.  So much easier."
+
+Pen would have liked to dispense with the car as well as its owner, but
+did not see how that was to be accomplished plausibly.  At any rate she
+reflected, the chauffeur could not follow her into the stores.  The
+main thing was to be rid of Riever.  But she rejoiced too soon.
+
+He said: "I'm taking it for granted you'll lunch with me at the
+Bellevue.  We breakfasted so early I ordered lunch for twelve-thirty."
+
+This was awkward.  "Oh, I'm sorry!" said Pen.  "It will be impossible!"
+
+This man was not accustomed to be denied what he wanted.  The spoiled
+child leaped out of his eyes.  "Why?" he demanded.
+
+"So much to do," said Pen.  "This is a leisurely town.  Not like New
+York.  It takes time to be waited on."
+
+"But you've all afternoon."
+
+Pen was patient, for her.  "But think how seldom I get to town.  I
+couldn't take an hour or two off for lunch."
+
+"Make it half an hour then."
+
+"Please excuse me to-day."
+
+"Oh, very well," he said in a pet.  "Pick me up at the Bellevue
+whenever you are through."
+
+He was in a hateful temper the rest of the way.  When he thought Pen
+was not looking at him his eyes darted sidelong jealous glances at her.
+Clearly his suspicions were aroused, and he was meditating some sort of
+mischief.  It was a catastrophe.  But Pen did not see how she could
+have acted differently.
+
+It lacked a few minutes of eleven when they reached town.  Riever got
+out at the hotel, and Pen went on about her shopping with an anxious
+breast.  What would he do?
+
+She was soon informed on that score.  As she proceeded from store to
+store she kept her eyes open about her and became aware finally of a
+man that turned up wherever she went.  He was a burly individual
+dressed in clothes too warm for the season, and with an expression of
+unconsciousness that was almost comical in its transparency.  Spy was
+writ large on him.  Pen was a little appalled by this evidence of her
+adversary's power.  He seemed to be able to summon his creatures out of
+the air.  She reflected, however, that it would be easy enough for
+Riever to send a man from his mail car down to the shopping district to
+pick up the imported car.  There was no other car like it.
+
+Pen made several attempts to lose her follower in the crowds, but
+without avail.  He looked like a fool, nevertheless he always succeeded
+in nosing her out like a too faithful dog.
+
+At noon she took up her stand in front of the notion counter at
+Douglas' with a fast beating heart.  Outside the store she had sought
+to dismiss her car, saying she didn't know how long she'd be, but the
+chauffeur had replied that he'd find a place to park nearby and would
+wait as long as she liked.  Had he too, been instructed not to lose
+her?  Inside the store she would not look, but she was horribly
+conscious that the burly spy was somewhere across the aisle pretending
+to examine silver articles.  Watched or not, she had to keep her
+appointment.  If the girl obeyed instructions all might yet be well.
+There would be nothing strange in her meeting a girl friend in a
+department store.  But probably she would not look like a friend.
+Nevertheless, Pen's great fear was that the girl would not come at all.
+She already felt flat and despairing in prospect.
+
+Pen could not appear to be looking for anybody.  With sightless eyes
+she inspected the stock of notions.  There were scores of little
+baskets displaying pins, hair-pins, fasteners, tapes, hair-nets, all
+the multitudinous contrivances with which women keep themselves
+together.  It is the busiest counter in a department store.  Perspiring
+women elbowed her on either hand.  An exasperated voice said at her
+shoulder:
+
+"If you don't want anything here would you kindly give me room!"
+
+Pen in a daze, gave way.  She was saying to herself: "She'll never
+come.  It was a wild scheme.  You're only wasting your time..."
+
+Suddenly a high-pitched, metallic voice beside her exclaimed: "Well of
+all people!  How are you?"
+
+Pen jumped as if the last thing in the world she expected was to be
+addressed.  Half a dozen women turned around.  Pen seemed to shrivel
+under their glances.  But the other girl carried it off well.  She was
+talking continually.  Pen got a flash of hard, bright black eyes and a
+brilliant tight smile.  It disconcerted her.  She had expected--well,
+some sort of a pathetic figure.  These eyes expressed an infinite
+sophistication that seemed to open a gulf between them.
+
+Pen's lapse was but momentary.  Out of the tail of her eye she saw a
+burly figure pushing across the aisle, and the emergency nerved her.
+With an automatic reflection of the other girl's manner she began to
+talk back:
+
+"Upon my word!  Who would ever have expected to find you here?"
+Without changing her smile she murmured: "We're watched.  He's coming
+this way."
+
+The other girl's eyes signaled: "I get you!" She said loudly: "How are
+all the folks?"
+
+"Much the same as usual," said Pen.
+
+The burly one brushed by, his foolish eyes looking everywhere but at
+them, his mouth pursed up to whistle.
+
+When he had gone by, "Bull," murmured the black-eyed girl out of the
+corner of her mouth.  "Pure-bred Jersey."  Aloud she said vivaciously:
+"You must tell me all about everybody.  Let's get out of this jam."
+
+With a hand under Pen's elbow, she steered her out of the press.
+Crossing the aisle they struck into a side aisle, deserted for the
+moment.  Here the man could not come close enough to overhear their
+talk without giving himself away completely.  They could see him
+loitering in the main aisle uncertain what to do.
+
+The black-eyed girl was an admirable actress.  She kept up a running
+fire of questions: "How's Alfred?  And the old man?  And Maud?"
+
+Pen's spirits rose fast.  It was dangerous, and it was fun.  A genuine
+smile replaced the mechanical one.  She rattled off some kind of
+answers, surprised at her own talkativeness.
+
+Meanwhile the two were busily sizing each other up, Pen with shy
+glances, the other with bold ones.  Pen saw a little creature
+beautifully formed, very pretty too, with petulant, doll-like features,
+frankly made up.  The idea of the make-up was not to imitate nature,
+but to create an original artistic effect.  She was smartly dressed in
+a plain black silk slip confined by a beaded girdle, impudent little
+close-fitting hat, expensive gray slippers and stockings.  She carried
+an exotic little beaded bag.  She might have been anything or anybody
+almost.  It is so hard to tell nowadays.  Certainly she did not smack
+of the underworld as Pen imagined it.  But Pen perhaps was not much of
+a judge.
+
+On the other hand Pen could hardly have been mistaken for anything but
+what she was.  There was a sort of open reticence in her, a high
+unaffectedness that was in her blood and could not be hidden nor
+imitated.  With all her assurance the other girl resented it a little.
+Without changing her outward manner the black-eyed one said:
+
+"Well, what's the big idea, Miss?  I don't get you at all.  Are you a
+bull yourself?"
+
+"No," said Pen smiling.
+
+"Well, if you are you're a new type.  I know them all.  What did you
+get me down among the orioles for?  Nobody down here's got anything on
+me."
+
+"I want to be your friend," said Pen.
+
+The other pulled down the corners of her lips mockingly.  "Old stuff,
+sister.  Every con game that ever was started opened with that.  Can
+the friendship.  You'll need it next winter.  Give it to me straight.
+What's the likes of you doing, trailed by a bull?"
+
+"It's a long story," said Pen.
+
+"Well, my hearing's good."
+
+"If we could get away somewhere..."
+
+"Nothing doing!  No back alley work for me.  This is a first-rate
+public situation.  Speak your piece."
+
+"I can't," said Pen helplessly.  "There must be confidence between us
+first.  You must know that it is something I can't blurt out in a place
+like this."
+
+The black eyes bored her through and through.  Curiosity and suspicion
+were struggling there.  It was strongly in Pen's favor, however, that
+she was being tracked by a detective.  "Do you live in this town?" the
+girl demanded.
+
+"No," said Pen.  "I came here to meet you."
+
+"Are you alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I warn you I'm not.  If anything is to be tried on, I got a
+husky friend with me."
+
+Pen, glancing around guardedly, had no great difficulty in picking him
+out--a nonchalant youth leaning against a bargain counter.  He was very
+well dressed in sporting style, topped with an exaggerated flat tweed
+cap.  His cheeks were as smooth and pink as a girl's, but the glance of
+his blue eyes was disillusioned.
+
+"He may look like a boy soprano," said the girl dryly, "but I assure
+you he sings double-bass.  It's Babe Riordan, side partner of Spike's,
+that I brought along.  Understand wherever I go the Babe goes too."
+
+"All right," said Pen.
+
+"Well, what do you propose?"
+
+"I'd rather leave it to you," said Pen.
+
+Another lightning-like dart of the black eyes.  "Oh! ... Well, a room
+in a hotel's the safest place.  The leading hotel here is the
+Bellevue...."
+
+"Oh, not there," said Pen.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"He ... the man I want to tell you about is there."
+
+The girl took three steps to a counter where there was a salesgirl
+disengaged.  "What's the biggest hotel here next to the Bellevue?" she
+asked.
+
+"The Southland."
+
+"Thanks."  She returned to Pen.  "Make it the Southland in half an
+hour."
+
+"But the detective," said Pen.
+
+"Pooh!  He's just out of the egg," said the other with a scornful
+glance.  "He's still got his pin feathers stickin' on him.  Listen.
+Babe and I will take a room at the hotel and you come call on us, see?
+That bird couldn't follow you up, could he?"
+
+"No, but he might hear me ask for you at the desk."
+
+"Don't ask.  Listen.  Babe will be watching for you in the lobby.
+He'll be sitting there reading a paper.  You stroll by him and if
+everything's all right he'll flash a card under the paper with the room
+number on it, see?  You get the number in your head and come right up
+in the elevator."
+
+Pen could not but admire the little creature's strategy.
+
+But the black eyes narrowed suspiciously again.  "Mind, if there's any
+funny work about this, if there's anybody near you when you come by
+Babe you don't get the room number, see?"
+
+Pen nodded.
+
+The little one lifted her voice blithely: "Well ta-ta old girl.  Call
+me up some time and we'll make a date to lunch together.  Remember me
+to the folks."
+
+She pattered coolly away in the direction of the burly loiterer, and
+brushed by him with a negligent hand at her black hair.  Pen turned in
+the other direction.  The detective came after her.  As she was about
+to leave the store she saw her opportunity.  An elevator door was just
+about to close.  She slipped inside and was carried aloft.  Her
+follower had to wait for the next car.  She crossed the building on an
+upper floor, came down in a car on the other side, and got out of the
+store without seeing the man again.
+
+Half an hour later she was knocking at the door of room 1214 in the
+Southland Hotel.  The door was opened by one who remained invisible.
+Pen walked in with her heart in her mouth.  Blanche was behind the
+door.  She was smoking a cigarette.  At the sight of Pen's face she
+laughed.
+
+"For Mike's sake don't look so scared, sister.  Any bull would arrest
+you on suspish with that face.  Where is he?"
+
+"I shook him off in the store," said Pen.
+
+"Good work!"  Blanche seemed disposed to be friendlier, but was still
+wary.  She said offhand: "Just to be fair and aboveboard I ought to
+tell you I carry a gun, sister."  She held up the little beaded bag.
+It had no draw-string, and she carried it clutched about the neck.
+When she relaxed her grasp it opened wide revealing a wicked little
+automatic among her make-up.
+
+Pen shrank back, and Blanche laughed again.  "You are a tender sprout!"
+
+"Is that boy coming up here?" asked Pen anxiously.
+
+"Sure!"
+
+"Couldn't I talk to you without him?"
+
+"Nothing doing!  It 'ud hurt his feelings."
+
+"I've got things to tell you I couldn't say before a man!"
+
+Blanche frowned.  "Say, you talk like a fillum!" She studied Pen
+afresh.  "You don't look dangerous but ... Say, you got to give me some
+line on your game or nothin' doin'!"
+
+"You've got to trust me," said Pen earnestly, "or we've had all our
+trouble for nothing."
+
+"Trusting's not what I'm good at, sister," said Blanche with a vigorous
+gesture.  "You give me some line on your game first.  Who the Hell are
+you?"
+
+"Well I'm going to trust you," said Pen.  She spread out her arms.
+"I'm Pendleton Broome."
+
+For once the little creature was shaken out of her uncanny
+self-possession.  She whistled like a boy.  Her eyes glistened with
+excitement.  "The Don Counsell case!" she exclaimed.  "You're in that!
+... Good God! has it got anything to do with me ... with Spike?"
+
+"I think it has," said Pen.  "That's for you to say when I've told you
+all I know."
+
+"Well, shoot! ... shoot!" said Blanche excitedly.
+
+They heard steps coming along the corridor.
+
+Blanche laid a hand on Pen's arm.  "Maybe it would be just as well if
+we saved Babe's tender ears...."
+
+Babe himself opened the door and walked in.
+
+Pen observed at close range that his years probably numbered a few more
+than the eighteen she had at first given him.  He was a graceful youth
+and a comely one, but his blue eyes were as hard as china.  Both
+Blanche and the Babe had the look of unnatural high school children.
+Like actors they carefully cultivated and played up this infantile
+effect.  The hard eyes of the young-old pair afflicted Pen with a kind
+of despair.  How could she hope to win such eyes?
+
+The young man pulled off his cap and bobbed his head in Pen's
+direction.  There was something about her that made him distrust his
+manners.  His disillusioned eyes suggested that he could be masterful
+enough with his own kind of girl.
+
+"Our friend here says her tale ain't fit for men's ears," said Blanche
+flippantly.
+
+The young man scowled without looking at Pen.  "What does she take us
+for, a pair of suckers?"
+
+"Oh, I'm not afraid of her," said Blanche.  "I know who she is."
+
+"Who is she?" he asked, as if Pen were not present.
+
+"Tell you later when I've heard the whole story."
+
+He hesitated, scowling.
+
+"Toddle along!" said Blanche.
+
+"You're foolish," he muttered.
+
+The black eyes flashed on him.  "That's for me to say!"
+
+Pen thought with rising hope: "She's beginning to accept me."
+
+"Wait a minute," said Blanche.  "I'll satisfy you."  To Pen she said
+suddenly: "Put up your hands!"
+
+"What for?" stammered Pen.
+
+They jeered at her innocence.  "Put up your hands!" repeated Blanche.
+
+Pen obeyed, and Blanche with flying, practiced hands felt of her all
+over, while the young man stood by.  Blanche nodded reassuringly to the
+Babe.
+
+"I'll wait outside," he said surlily.
+
+"Oh, if she wants to mix it up I'll oblige her," said Blanche in her
+flip way.  "Though she is bigger than me."
+
+"I'll wait outside," he repeated.
+
+"Yes," said Blanche sarcastically, "and have the maid report you to the
+office as a suspicious character.  Go down and read your paper.  I'll
+send a boy for you."
+
+He went.
+
+Blanche turned mockingly to Pen.  "Now, darling!"
+
+Pen felt dimly that her flippant mockery concealed a sort of despair.
+She could admire the little creature's gameness and hardihood, but
+could not possibly meet her on that ground.  It rendered her helpless.
+Meanwhile Blanche took a fresh cigarette, and called Pen's attention to
+the packet with a jerk of her head.  Pen shook her head.
+
+"Well, don't stand there like a wax-work in a store-window," said
+Blanche.  "Disjoint yourself."
+
+Pen sat in an armchair with her back to one of the windows.  She groped
+within herself for something to go on with.  But she felt empty.
+Blanche moved restlessly around the room; plumped herself on the edge
+of the bed, and jumped up again.  She glanced at Pen with increasing
+irritation.  Apparently a silence drove her wild.
+
+"You're so different from what I expected," Pen murmured at last, "I
+scarcely know how to begin."
+
+"What did you expect?" queried Blanche.  "A singing canary?"
+
+"I don't know ... I got the idea from the newspaper that you were in
+trouble."
+
+Blanche stared, then laughed metallically.  "Not me!" she said coolly.
+"I wasn't born yesterday."
+
+Pen perceived the nature of the misunderstanding, and blushed.  "I
+mean, I thought you'd lost somebody ... that you cared for."
+
+Blanche bared her teeth suddenly like a hurt animal.  "Keep off that!"
+she said sharply.
+
+"But that's why I wrote to you."
+
+"Say!" cried Blanche, ugly and callous, "if it's only sob-stuff you're
+after, you come to the wrong shop, see?  I don't deal in it!  Me, I'm
+water-tight and nickel-plated!"
+
+"Why can't you be natural with me?" murmured Pen.
+
+"I am natural.  If I wanted to work you for anything, I could turn the
+wringer till the tub overflowed.  I'm famous for it.  Real tears
+without the aid of the glycerine bottle.  But you said you wanted to be
+on the level."
+
+"Do I look soft?" challenged Pen.
+
+"Don't ask me," said Blanche, refusing to look at her.  "I don't get
+you at all.  You're completely outside my experience."
+
+Pen tried another line.  "Have you been reading the newspapers about
+the Counsell case?"
+
+"Off and on.  I've had troubles of my own."
+
+"Well," Pen said low-voiced--it cost her an effort to get it out, "Don
+Counsell is to me what I suppose Henry Talley was to you."
+
+If Blanche was softened she showed it in a sort of back-handed way.
+"You mean Spike," she said.  "That's all he answered to."
+
+Pen's instinct began to show her the way.  "How did he get that name?"
+she asked casually.
+
+Blanche fell into her little trap.  She was standing at the other
+window idly twisting the cord of the blind between thumb and
+forefinger.  Her back was to Pen.  Her voice came muffled and jerky.
+
+"Because he was so tall.  And slender.  But not a gowk neither.  A
+peach of a figure.  Thoroughbred.  Stripped he weighed 155, and not an
+ounce to spare.  A runner, a swimmer, a boxer; anything that needed
+speed and wind.  And a dancer.  The best dancer at Steck's pavilion.
+Everything he did, he did out o' sight!  Class, too.  He could pass
+anywhere as a college boy or a Wall Street broker."
+
+She suddenly whirled around.  "He was a gunman!" she cried defiantly.
+"Make what you like of it!  He never asked for the good opinion of the
+likes of you, and neither do I!  He was the coolest head of the lot.
+He went to his mark like a bulldog, and nothing could shake him off.
+What have you got to do with the likes of us?  What do I care what you
+think?  Both him and me had to fight our way since we were kids.  We
+weren't going to take scraps from the tables of the rich.  We were out
+to get the best there was for ourselves.  We were outsiders.  Well, the
+insiders were our enemies, and we went after them!"
+
+She turned back to the window and began to sob in a hard, dry way that
+scared Pen.  The hurrying, toneless voice went on.  "To everybody else
+he was cool and smooth as hard enamel.  Not to me.  He was human to me.
+Lighthearted as a boy when there was no business on hand.  You were
+sure of having a good time with Spike.  Make you die laughing with his
+wild, comical ways.  He was a man.  He was real.  There was a fire in
+him ... Oh God!"
+
+She turned and flung herself face down across the bed, her arms hanging
+down the other side.  "He's gone!  He's gone!" she moaned.  "And I'm
+left! ... Oh God, I can't bear it!"
+
+Pen went and sat on the bed, and put a hand on the other girl's
+shoulder.  Blanche flung it off roughly.  Rolling over, she sat up with
+her tormented face not a foot away from Pen's.  Pen did not shrink.
+
+"You talk about loving a man!  I know how your kind loves.  Cool and
+dainty!  What do you know about loving, brought up good with a home and
+a family and all?  Everything provided for you.  I never had nothing!
+Till I got him.  He was the first who ever belonged to me....  I had to
+fight every inch of my way and be on guard every minute.  He had to,
+too, just the same.  But we could let down with each other!  It eased
+us!"
+
+She flung herself down in another wild burst of weeping.
+
+Pen let it wear itself out.  "I am just the same as you underneath,"
+she murmured.
+
+Blanche quieted down.  In her abrupt way she got to her feet and went
+to the bureau.  Emptying out the little beaded bag, she commenced to
+rub fresh color into her cheeks, making strange faces into the glass
+meanwhile.  But the tears flowed faster than she could repair the
+damage.
+
+"Oh damn!" she cried, throwing down the rouge pad.
+
+She drifted around the room with her lithe, abrupt movements like a
+diminutive tigress, the baby face all woebegone and hollowed.  "Why
+couldn't you leave me alone?" she said crossly.  "What'd you want to
+get me going for!  Now you know what's inside I hope you're satisfied!"
+
+Notwithstanding the querulous tone Pen saw that she had been accepted
+as a fellow-woman.  There was no more strangeness between them.
+
+"What do you want of me?" Blanche went on.  "What good am I to anybody
+now?  For two cents I'd fling myself out of the window and end it."
+
+"I thought you'd want to know what happened to Spike Talley," said Pen.
+
+It had an electrical effect on Blanche.  She ran to Pen.  "Do you know?
+Do you know?  Do you know?" she demanded, moving her little clenched
+fists up and down.
+
+"I have only a suspicion.  We must follow it out together."
+
+"Well, open it! open it!"
+
+Her tigerish look gave Pen a fresh fear.  "You must promise me
+something!"
+
+"Oh, my God!  What?"
+
+"Not to try to take the law into your own hands."
+
+"What are you trying to protect the man for?"
+
+"I'm not trying to protect him.  I want to bring him into the
+prisoner's dock."
+
+"Well, I promise," said Blanche unwillingly.  "Who was it?"
+
+"Do you know who Spike Talley was working for when he disappeared?"
+
+"No!" cried Blanche.  "Don't torment me with any more questions.  Who
+was it?"
+
+"I suspect it was Ernest Riever."
+
+The great name pulled Blanche up short.  She stared at Pen with wide
+troubled eyes.  "What for?" she whispered hoarsely.
+
+"Would you mind very much," Pen faltered, "if I said I suspected that
+it was Spike Talley who shot Collis Dongan?"
+
+Blanche smiled scornfully.  "Not at all," she said coolly.  "If it was
+his job."  Her eyes widened again.  "I begin to get you," she said
+slowly.  "You mean Riever hired Spike ... and when the job was done ...
+croaked him?"
+
+Pen nodded.
+
+"Maybe so," said Blanche somberly.  "What do you know?"
+
+Pen told her.  "You see it's next to nothing," she said agitatedly.
+"They wouldn't call it evidence....  Just the same _I know!_ ... What
+can you add to it?" she implored, clasping her hands.
+
+Blanche stood with withdrawn gaze like a little statue of abstraction.
+"Not much ... right off the bat," she murmured.  "But it's a working
+theory.  Things can be found out ...  Funny it never struck me that
+Dongan was killed the night Spike disappeared....  I knew Spike was on
+a job, too....  But everybody said Counsell did that....  I can tell
+you one thing.  It was a rich man Spike was working for.  One of the
+richest.  He said as much."
+
+"That's something," said Pen.
+
+"I knew it was dangerous work, too.  Because I heard the price.  It
+scared me.  And I'm not easy scared.  But I couldn't let on....  We
+were going to marry on it and go out to California and live like other
+people.  Raise things..."
+
+The tears began to flow again, but Blanche shook her head savagely.
+"I'm not going to cry again!  I'm not going to cry any more till I see
+this through!"
+
+"Can you think of anything else?" begged Pen.
+
+"Wait a minute....  It was part of Spike's job to dress up every
+evening, big white shirt front and all, he was crazy about it, he could
+get away with it too ... and have dinner at some swell joint ..."
+
+"Could it have been the Hotel Warrington?"
+
+"That as well as another....  Wait a minute....  He brought me a menu
+card to show me.  The top was torn off with the name of the hotel.  But
+I have the rest of it home.  Easy enough to find out if that's one of
+the Warrington cards."
+
+"Yes, yes!" said Pen.  "Anything else?  Oh, think!"
+
+"Wait a minute! ... There was something else....  Only a little thing
+... More than once Spike mentioned that his boss had elegant whiskey.
+Said it stood in a cut glass bottle on a table, and every time he went
+there his boss would say: 'Help yourself.'  That seemed to strike
+Spike.  So friendly from a man like that..."
+
+"Riever is an expert on poisons," said Pen aghast.
+
+Blanche's little face was like a mask of pain, the lips drawn taut over
+the exposed teeth.  "I get you!" she murmured hoarsely.  "The last time
+Spike helped himself..."
+
+The two girls stared at each other.
+
+Something seemed to click inside Blanche, and instantly she was her
+ordinary wary, hard, self-possessed little self again.  She moved
+towards the telephone.
+
+"I'll send for the Babe," she said.  "You can count on him the same as
+me.  He looked up to Spike.  He's got a good head on him too, for a
+kid.  We'll go over everything together, and then the kid and I'll
+fluff back.  In N'Yawk there's a dozen young fellows'll help.  All pals
+of Spike's.  I'll organize them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE RETURN
+
+It was five o'clock and the stores were closing as Pen sought for the
+big car.  She picked it out from afar, parked in the double rank that
+lined the Lexington street hill.  For five hours it had completely
+passed out of her mind, and she was terrified now of facing the justly
+indignant chauffeur.  To be sure she had told him she didn't know how
+long she would be, but five hours!
+
+But it proved to be nothing in his life.  That was how he spent the
+greater part of his days, waiting.  It was easier to wait than to
+drive.  He opened the door for her with a perfectly good-humored face,
+and Pen much relieved, asked him to drive to the Bellevue.
+
+She expected another ordeal here.  What sort of report would Riever's
+agent have made to his master?  Riever was on the lookout for her.
+Without appearing to, Pen studied his face.  Little was to be read
+there, though.  The malicious smile told her nothing, for she had
+learned that it was merely a trick of his ugly features.  Often when
+his smile was most devilish he was really trying to ingratiate himself.
+
+When he got in, seeing Pen's meager bundles, he said: "Is that all you
+got all day?"
+
+Pen suspected a thrust, though it was a natural enough remark.  "I
+ordered most of the things sent by mail," she said.  "It is quicker."
+
+Before they had gone far Pen discovered that his humor had changed
+since morning.  In a clumsy sort of way he was trying to express
+contrition for his ill-temper.  He was not the sort of man who could
+bring out a frank apology.  Pen wondered.  The detective could not have
+given a disturbing report of her.  Perhaps in order to conceal the fact
+that she had given him the slip, he had made up a harmless account of
+her day.
+
+At any rate Riever was softened.  He was less glib.  He looked at Pen
+in a new way.  He asked her little questions about her day, apparently
+not with any idea of entrapping her, but because he wanted to share in
+her concerns.  Pen was much confused by this new aspect of his.  It
+raised unanswerable questions.  Was it possible that the horrible
+creature was really touched?  How could he have a heart?  Suppose
+instead of fighting her he came crawling to her feet?  How would she
+meet that situation?  It was horrible! horrible!  Yet she was thrilled
+with a sense of power too.  She could not have any compunctions against
+making Riever suffer.  If only she were able to handle him!  She
+foresaw breathless danger.
+
+Meanwhile there they were cooped up together in the luxurious little
+cab.  Had it been little Blanche Paglar sitting there beside Riever,
+her flesh would have been quivering with hatred.  Pen was not of so
+simple a constitution.  Her flesh took no alarm from his proximity.
+She could look at him coolly and speculatively.  Her strongest feeling
+was one of contempt, seeing him begin to turn a little abject.  He had
+terrible power, she never forgot that, but it was not in himself.
+There were moments when she found herself detached and a little sorry
+for him.
+
+But while she was considering him thus dispassionately (they had got
+out in the country by this time) he pulled a little case out of his
+side pocket and snapping it open revealed a slender bracelet of
+platinum and diamonds exquisitely wrought.
+
+"Will you accept it?" he murmured.
+
+Pen started as if she had been stung, and a surprising feeling of rage
+welled up in her.  She could scarcely speak for it.
+
+"I couldn't possibly!  I couldn't possibly!" she murmured.
+
+"It wasn't very expensive," he murmured deprecatingly.  "I purposely
+picked out something inexpensive."
+
+Inexpensive!  Pen stared at him.  The thing had obviously cost
+thousands.  But she saw that he was sincere in it.
+
+"It attracted me," he went on.  "It's so hard to find anything that
+looks as if any thought or care had gone into it.  That's why I got it."
+
+"You had no right to suppose that I would accept it," said Pen sorely.
+
+"I didn't suppose it.  I just took a chance."
+
+Pen was reminded that she _must_ keep on terms with him.  "I'm sorry,"
+she said more mildly.  "I couldn't possibly."
+
+"Is it because you detest me so?" he asked with ugly, curling lip.
+
+Pen was startled.  Her anger had betrayed her.  She put her wits to
+work to repair the damage.  "Not at all!" she said coolly.  "It's
+because you're so rich.  It sickens me the way people fawn on you, all
+expecting something.  That's why I can't take it."
+
+"You could take it ... without being like other people," he said.
+
+A struggle was going on inside Pen.  Not that she wanted the glittering
+bracelet.  It was horrible to her.  But her cooler self was saying:
+"You ought to take it to put his mind at ease.  You can return it
+later.  It is merely silly to be high-minded in dealing with a man like
+this!"  But at the suggestion of taking it her fingers automatically
+closed until the nails were digging into her palms.  It was useless to
+think of it.  She knew that her fingers would break sooner than open to
+receive the little box.
+
+"I'm sorry," she said.  "Please put it away."
+
+He snapped the box shut and dropped it in his pocket again.  For a good
+while he looked out of the window without saying anything.  Pen could
+not read his thoughts.  She said to herself: "Oh well, it's got to be
+understood that he can't give me things!"
+
+They dined in Annapolis.  Evidently it had been ordered ahead by
+telephone.  They were received by an expectant waiter, there were roses
+on the table, and the best that the little town afforded was ready and
+hot.  Pen being a woman, could not but be pleased by such attentions,
+though a mocking little voice inside her whispered: "This is how silly
+women are snared!"  She enjoyed the food thoroughly, and was charming
+to Riever, all the while a little dialogue went on within.  One voice
+was saying accusingly: "Sitting here smiling and encouraging your
+lover's deadly enemy!" the other replying: "How else can I save my
+lover?"
+
+It was eight o'clock and beginning to grow dark when they came out of
+the hotel.  Pen shivered with repulsion at the thought of being cooped
+up with Riever for the sixty-mile drive through the night.  She said
+offhand:
+
+"Do you ever drive?"
+
+"Oh yes," he said unsuspectingly.
+
+"Let's put the chauffeur inside and ride out in the air.  The moon will
+be up directly."
+
+Riever scowled, and a hateful answer leaped to his lips.  But he bit it
+back.  "All right," he mumbled.
+
+And so they rode.
+
+He proved to be a skillful chauffeur.  There was something quite
+impressive in the nonchalant way he spun the wheel with one hand on a
+curve.  He had a bland disregard for speed laws having learned that few
+constables had the temerity to stop so princely an equipage.  They went
+through Camp Parole at forty miles an hour, but fortunately without
+hitting any of the dark-skinned inhabitants of that humble suburb.  At
+the green light which marks the W. B. & A. station they turned sharply
+and streaked away to the South to the throaty growl of an open exhaust.
+
+Their conversation was fitful as needs be on the front seat of a
+speeding car.  But they were entirely friendly.  The episode of the
+bracelet had been forgotten.  Both pairs of eyes were hypnotized by the
+strong path of light on the yellow road before them.  The bordering
+leafage was shown up in a queer chemical green like stage scenery.  The
+moon came up, but what's moonlight to automobilists?  The reticent moon
+disdains to compete with headlights.
+
+When they were within a few miles of Absolom's Island, Riever glancing
+at the clock under the cowl, said:
+
+"We've come too fast.  I didn't order the boat until 9.45."
+
+He took his foot off the accelerator and the big car loafed along.
+Relieved of the strain, their eyes were free to wander around.  All
+Riever's glances were for Pen's profile.  He said abruptly:
+
+"You're a funny one!  One would think you blamed me for having a lot of
+money."
+
+"Not blame you," said Pen.  "Though I think it's unjust somehow.  But
+you didn't make conditions."
+
+"Why is it unjust?"
+
+"Oh, don't ask me to argue it with you.  I've never thought such things
+out.  It's just a feeling I have."
+
+"If somebody offered you a fortune would you turn it down?"
+
+"Depends upon the condition attached," said Pen calmly.
+
+"If there were no conditions."
+
+"No, I wouldn't turn it down."
+
+"Good!" he said.  "All they say against money may be true, but just the
+same when people make out to despise it they're lying."
+
+"No doubt," said Pen.
+
+"I like to talk to you," he said.  "You're real."
+
+"Thanks," said Pen dryly.
+
+"What do you think about me, really?" he blurted out.
+
+"I don't know," said Pen.
+
+"Well, it's true nobody really knows anybody else," he said.....  "I
+wish I could get myself over to you.  Since I've known you I've
+realized more than ever what a lot there is missing in my life.  Nobody
+knows me....  There's a sort of wall cuts me off from everybody."
+
+It was very confusing to Pen's ideas to discover that a man could be a
+black villain and sentimental too.  "Oh, I wish he wouldn't!" she
+thought uncomfortably.  Aloud she said rather sharply:
+
+"Well, it's your own fault, isn't it?"
+
+He chuckled.  "I love the way you come back at me," he said.  "... I
+suppose it is my own fault.  I ought to climb over the wall.  But it's
+difficult.  They put me behind it young."
+
+After awhile he said: "It's a great thought, isn't it, to think of
+having somebody you could be absolutely honest with?"
+
+"Of course," said Pen.  She was reminded of Blanche and Spike.
+
+As Riever talked on she began to see how he reconciled villainy and
+sentiment in his mind.
+
+"Of course it would have to be a person with a strong mind.  For when I
+say honesty I don't mean all this sickening cant about goodness and
+unselfishness and meekness that the church hands out.  Nobody takes
+that seriously any more.  Man is by nature a rapacious animal.  Out for
+what he can get.  Well, his highest function must be to realize his
+nature.  Therefore I say that the highest type of man is the man who
+gets what he wants regardless."
+
+Pen thought wonderingly: "He actually looks upon himself as a romantic
+figure!"
+
+As she made no answer he asked somewhat uneasily: "That's right, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Not for me," said Pen.  "Man may be a rapacious animal, but he is also
+capable of controlling his rapacity.  And it seems to me it's only by
+controlling it that he can be even decently happy.  I've read somewhere
+that beasts of prey always come to a violent end."
+
+Riever smiled in a superior sort of way.  "You're stronger than most
+women," he said with a sneer.  "But you can't let go of your religious
+tags.  I suppose it's too much to expect."
+
+Pen only smiled.
+
+"Now I suppose I've offended you," he said presently.
+
+"Not in the least!" said Pen.
+
+"No, you don't give a damn one way or the other," he said sorely.
+
+Pen laughed.  "Nothing I say pleases you!"
+
+"You please me," he muttered, "but..."  The end of his sentence trailed
+off unintelligibly.
+
+What a queer mixture he was, Pen mused.  Arrogance and self-distrust.
+Attempting to strut before her and collapsing at the lift of an
+eyebrow.  She failed to take into account the terrible way in which her
+clear nature struck into the dark recesses of the ugly little man's
+being.  He could assert himself strongly enough against anybody but
+her.  And the more he was obliged to cringe to her, the more he desired
+her.
+
+As they bowled over the causeway to the Island Riever said: "I haven't
+given up hope of you, though.  You have a natural hatred of sham.  I'll
+teach you to face the truth yet!"
+
+Pen smiled on.
+
+At the steamboat wharf at the other end of the Island the speed boat
+was waiting, her starboard light a startling gleam of emerald in a
+dusky gray world, her white-clad crew sitting quietly in the moonlight.
+Pen and her packages were handed aboard and they flew for Broome's
+Point.
+
+Out on the water the moon indifferently resumed her sway.  The whole
+earth was hers to tread on.  The front of the island with its odd row
+of semi-detached, whitewashed shacks looked like something as foreign
+as Algiers.  In the bow wave that rolled away from the speed boat there
+was a dull phosphorescent glow like saturated moonlight, and looking
+over through the shadow of the boat one could see fishes dart away like
+little balls of pale moonlight.  Pen's face was as beautiful and
+passionless as the moon's.
+
+In the sheltered nook astern the face of Riever the would-be strong
+man, the Devil's advocate, broke up like any calfish boy's.  He fumbled
+clumsily for her hand.
+
+"Don't!" whispered Pen sharply.  "They'll see!"
+
+"What of it?" he mumbled.
+
+"I won't have it!" said Pen.
+
+His eyebrows went up in a stare of indignant amazement.  Nobody had
+ever spoken to him like that.  But as it had absolutely no effect, they
+gradually came down again into the likeness of a sulky schoolboy's.
+
+"Aw, Pen!"
+
+She struggled hard with her repulsion.  "Well ... well ... I hate to be
+touched!"
+
+"One would think there was something the matter with me!" he muttered.
+
+"This is simply weak of you," Pen said cunningly.
+
+He looked away grinding his teeth.
+
+Fortunately, as it was but three minutes to the Point, the scene could
+not be prolonged.
+
+As they drew close to the old wharf they made out that there were a
+number of men upon it with lanterns and flash lights.
+
+"What's going on there?" Riever asked his steersman.
+
+"Couldn't say, sir.  Everything was quiet when we started over."
+
+They heard a hail from the wharf: "On board the _Alexandra_!"
+
+And the answer: "Hello!"
+
+"Give us some light here, please!"
+
+The yacht's big search-light was thrown dazzlingly on the end of the
+wharf showing up all the figures in sharp silhouette.
+
+The speed-boat approached unnoticed from the other side.  The instant
+she drew alongside Riever sprang out and ran across.  Pen guessed what
+was happening, and her heart seemed to stop and sink like a stone.  But
+she followed Riever with a composed face.
+
+All the men were looking over the other side, their heads down to keep
+the blinding glare out of their eyes.  One had a rope with a grappling
+iron on the end of it.  He was fishing for something while they all
+watched.  The burly figure of Delehanty was conspicuous.
+
+"What's wrong here?" demanded Riever.
+
+"Don't know as there's anything wrong, sir.  One of the men swimming
+here, said he dived into something suspicious.  We're trying to locate
+it."
+
+As he spoke the man with the rope said: "I've got it!"  And started to
+haul in.
+
+The green water surged up a little and the curved stem of the canoe
+rose out of it.  The valise appeared, tied to a thwart.
+
+Delehanty's harsh voice cried: "Counsell's canoe, by God!  He never
+went away from here!"
+
+Of one accord all the men turned and looked at Pen.  She bore it
+unflinchingly.  She disdained to turn away.  Riever's face working
+uncontrollably with rage, looked truly devilish.  Conscious that he was
+betraying himself, he turned his back sharply to the light.
+
+When she had given them their fill of looking, Pen turned and commenced
+to walk slowly away.
+
+"One moment, Miss!" said Delehanty.
+
+Pen half turned.  "I'm going home," she said in a composed voice.  "If
+I'm wanted you'll find me there."
+
+She walked on, taking care not to hurry herself.  But her heart was
+beating with a bird's wings.
+
+"No, you don't!" cried Delehanty, and started after her.
+
+Riever with an odd, tense spring, caught his arm.  There was a
+whispered colloquy, and as a result Delehanty stayed, and Riever went
+after Pen.  The little man, tense with passion, had for the first time
+a sort of dignity.  He was rather a terrible figure.  Pen, hearing his
+cat-like steps behind her, was sorely afraid.  He overtook her
+alongside the automobile that was waiting in the road.
+
+"Will you get in?" he asked in a queer, thick voice.
+
+Pen reflected that she would be safer in the car with the chauffeur
+than walking up the hill alone.  She got in without speaking.
+
+During the short ride up to the house they exchanged no word.  Pen was
+pressed into her corner, Riever into his.  He sat as still as an
+animal, his back slightly hunched, his hands on his thighs.
+Ugly-looking hands he had that the moonlight could not dignify: too
+small for a man, furtive-looking, hands acquainted with evil.  Pen
+shuddered at them.  When they passed between the broken gates and
+rounded the shrubbery, Pen saw with dismay that all the windows of the
+big house were dark.  Her father had gone to bed.
+
+When the car stopped she jumped out, avoiding Riever's offered
+assistance.  Riever said to the chauffeur:
+
+"You needn't wait.  I'll walk back."
+
+Pen was horribly afraid.  Her instinct was to dart through the door,
+slam it in his face, and turn the key.  But flight was too abject.  If
+she yielded him ascendancy like that, she could never get it back
+again.  She said to herself while her teeth chattered: "I'm not afraid
+of him!  I'm not afraid of him!  If I stand my ground I have nothing to
+fear!"
+
+The car went back.  Riever stepped up on the porch by the two boxes,
+his head sunk.  Pen stood there.
+
+"You tricked me!" he said with a violent gesture, but taking care not
+to raise his voice.  "You said he'd gone from here!  He's been here
+ever since!  You're hiding him now!  What did you go to town for
+to-day?  What was in those packages you made me bring home in my car, a
+disguise for him?"
+
+Pen was not dismayed by this.  On the contrary as soon as he began to
+speak the man lost his curious, animal, impressiveness.  Seeing him
+beside himself, Pen began to feel strong again.
+
+"I left the packages in the boat," she said scornfully.  "No doubt by
+this time Delehanty has examined them."
+
+"What is this man to you?" demanded Riever.
+
+"I've already told you.  No more than any poor hunted creature."
+
+"If you lied once you can lie again!"
+
+Pen shrugged.
+
+"Swear that he's not your lover!" he cried.
+
+"To you?" cried Pen indignantly.
+
+"Then he is your lover!  You're keeping him close, I daresay.  You
+don't shiver when he touches you!"
+
+A great anger came to Pen's assistance.  "You fool!" she cried.  "Your
+disgusting money has turned your head!  Who do you think you are to
+speak this way to me?  I owe you nothing.  Neither oaths nor
+explanations.  Nothing!"
+
+Riever could not stand up under it.  His chin sunk, his body twisted.
+As a matter of fact he simply could not face the thought that the man
+he hated so had won the woman he desired.  He snatched at any hope.
+
+"Well ... if you're not hiding him, where is he?" he mumbled.
+
+"I don't know.  Far away, I hope."
+
+"How could he have got away?"
+
+"He walked up the Neck road while you were searching the shores."
+
+"Oh God, if I could believe you!" groaned Riever.
+
+"Well, I can't help you," said Pen.  She saw that with every word she
+was regaining the upper hand, and her heart was strong.
+
+A cajoling note crept into Riever's voice.  "Well, you couldn't do him
+any further good by lying.  If he's anywhere near we're bound to get
+him in the morning.  Within an hour Delehanty 'll send a party by boat
+up to the head of Back Creek.  They'll form a line across the Neck.  At
+dawn we stretch another line across this end and close up.  He can't
+escape between them."
+
+Pen's heart contracted painfully, but she gave no outward sign.  "What
+are you telling me this for?" she asked.
+
+"You can't do him any further good.  Leave him to his fate.  Tell me
+where he is so I'll know you're on the square with me."
+
+"It's nothing to me whether you think I'm on the square or not."
+
+Riever raised his clenched hands in a gesture of impotent rage.  "I've
+got to know!..."
+
+"I wouldn't tell you if I knew," said Pen.  "I wouldn't betray any man.
+Not you if you were in his place."
+
+With a painful struggle for self-command he took still another tone.
+"Well, that's all right.  I'll say no more about him....  But give me a
+pledge!"
+
+"Why should I?" she said coldly.
+
+Again the shaking gesture.  "I can't stand this!"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to!"
+
+His voice became more abject.  "Wait a minute!  You don't understand.
+All I want is a word.  You see how I am suffering.  A word from you
+will end it!"
+
+Pen was too startled to be angry any more.  A terribly dangerous
+situation faced her, and she needed all her wits with which to meet it.
+
+He took heart from her silence, her apparent uncertainty.  "I'm asking
+you to marry me," he said with a touch of his old arrogance.  "Do you
+get it?  Mrs. Ernest Riever.  Think what it means....  What do you say?"
+
+"I won't answer you now," she murmured.
+
+"You've got to answer me!" he said violently.  "I've got to know how
+you stand towards me!"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Look at it as a young fellow would look at a chance to advance
+himself," he rushed on.  It was one kind of love-making.  "Look what I
+have to offer you.  A place in the sun!  A place every living woman
+would envy you!  Isn't that sweet to you?  And by God! you'd grace it
+too, with your beauty and your high ways.  You weren't shaped to wear
+print dresses, Pen.  Think, think what you'd be.  A sort of queen.  A
+queen without any responsibilities.  Carried about like a queen
+wherever you wanted to go, with an army to wait on you.  Your slightest
+wish granted!"
+
+"I don't want to be a queen," murmured Pen a little dizzied by this
+rush of words.
+
+"Well then, anything you wanted....  Do you want to do good?  You can
+have whatever sums you want to lay out in good works.  Absolutely
+without limit.  You can make a name as a philanthropist such as nobody
+ever had before.  You couldn't refuse such a chance--you couldn't! ...
+What do you say?"
+
+"I will not answer you now," repeated Pen.  There was nothing else she
+could say.
+
+He stared at her as if unable to credit that she should not jump at
+such a chance.  "You've got to give me an answer!" he said showing his
+teeth.  "I'm going to find out how you stand towards this murderer."
+
+"Be careful!" cried Pen.
+
+That cry of hers answered him really, but he would not face it.  He
+became abject again.  "Well, I'll say no more about him....  Suppose
+you have a sort of fancy for him.  All right.  I'll give you a chance
+to save him....  Marry me at once.  Come away on the _Alexandra_ with
+me, and I'll call off the chase.  I'll withdraw the reward.  With me
+out of it the case against Counsell would collapse like a pricked
+balloon.  I couldn't offer fairer than that, could I?  Come back with
+me now.  The yacht has steam up.  Will you?  Will you?"
+
+Pen was shaken.  "Would you really take me on such terms?" she murmured.
+
+"Oh God!  I'd take you on any terms!" he groaned.
+
+The thought flew into Pen's brain: "You couldn't trust him!"  She
+energetically shook her head.  "I won't be rushed into anything."
+
+"Then I won't ask for a positive answer to-night," he stuttered.  "But
+just a sign.  Just a sign to show me I'm not hateful to you! .... Kiss
+me, Pen!"
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"Kiss me, Pen ... and I'll hold Delehanty back..."
+
+She yielded.  That is to say she yielded with her mind.  But the flesh
+rebelled.  He gathered her in his arms taut as a bow-string.  As his
+face approached hers she snapped.  With a wild, blind reaction she tore
+herself free.  No man could have held her.  The open door was behind
+her.  She darted through and slammed it shut.  He put his shoulder
+against it, but she was at least as strong as he.  She got the key
+turned.
+
+He beat on the door with the sides of his fists, cursing horribly, but
+as always, oddly careful not to make too much noise.
+
+Pen, nauseated with disgust, thought: "To be married to such a maniac!"
+
+Like a maniac he fell suddenly silent.  She pictured him listening.
+Presently his voice came softly as if he had his lips to the crack of
+the door, wheedling, crafty, threatening; infinitely more disgusting
+than his rage.
+
+"Are you there? ... Listen, I'll give you another chance.  Open the
+door!"
+
+A silence.
+
+"If you don't he goes to the chair! ... By God!  I'll spend every cent
+I possess to send him to the chair.  Do you get that?  Better open the
+door!"
+
+A silence.
+
+"It'll be too late when he's strapped in the chair with the black cap
+on and the electrode at the back of his handsome white neck...  You'll
+remember it was really you put him there...  Twelve hundred volts they
+give them.  You can smell them burning ... Well, how about it?"
+
+"Go away!" said Pen.
+
+"Oh, all right!  All right!" he cried violently.
+
+She heard him leap down by the boxes.  Looking through the narrow pane
+beside the door, she saw him run along the drive brandishing his
+clenched fists over his head.
+
+Pen went up-stairs.  A sudden weakness overcame her, and she could
+scarcely drag one foot after the other.  As she reached the upper
+landing a door opened and her father came out, carrying a candle.  She
+had to assume some semblance of self-possession.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing, Dad."
+
+"I thought I heard a little commotion down-stairs.  It wakened me."
+
+"Only the closing of the front door.  You must have been dreaming."
+
+"Who brought you home?"
+
+"Mr. Riever."
+
+A note of pleased excitement crept into Pendleton's voice.  "You have
+been with him all day?"
+
+"Most all day."
+
+He paddled close to her, the candle shaking a little in his agitation.
+He was wearing an old-fashioned night-shirt slit at the sides, and
+revealing an unexpectedly plump calf.  "Oh, Pen, it's all right between
+you two, isn't it?" he said.  "It means so much to me!"
+
+Pen was too weary to get angry all over again.  She merely smiled
+faintly at the irony of life.
+
+He had put off his grand airs with his clothes.  He was as simple now
+as his old-fashioned shirt.  "Pen dear, think what it means to me!  A
+frustrated old man!  I'm a failure.  I can't do anything for you.  And
+I see this chance for you to establish yourself!  Don't let any
+romantic youthful folly stand in the way, daughter.  There's nothing in
+it.  I know.  Safety is everything!"
+
+"Dad, you must leave this to me," Pen muttered painfully.
+
+"I will!  I will!" he said brightly.  "I have every confidence in you.
+If you think of the matter at all there can be but the one answer!"
+
+"Go to bed, dear," said Pen, kissing him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NIGHT LONG
+
+One of Delehanty's first measures was to have the big house watched.
+Even before Riever could have got back to the beach, Pen from her front
+window saw the little group come in by the drive, separate and lose
+themselves in the darkness.  One came to the house.  Pendleton let him
+in.  By Mr. Delehanty's orders he was to keep watch inside the house
+all night.  He was to remain in the hall of the second floor.
+Pendleton's outraged protests were in vain.  The man brought a chair up
+from the dining-room, and planted it outside Pen's door.  It was
+Keesing.  Pen already had him down in her black books, a gaunt,
+red-haired young man, curiously eager to do spy work.
+
+Pen locked her door, and paced up and down her room, raging.  Her
+weariness was forgotten.  Trapped! trapped! trapped! she felt with
+every footfall.  To be sure the flat roof of the porch ran around
+outside her windows.  It would be no great matter to slide down one of
+the porch posts to the ground.  But they were certainly watching her
+windows from the outside, counting on being able to humiliate her no
+doubt.
+
+Within the space of half an hour she nearly went out of her mind.  Then
+there was a diversion.  Once more the rat-tat-tat of the big knocker
+reverberated through the lofty halls, and Pendleton had to paddle
+down-stairs again.  Pen listening with all her ears made out the rumble
+of Delehanty's voice.  Some one else was speaking too.
+
+Finally Delehanty raised his voice: "Keesing!"
+
+"Yes sir?"
+
+The detective clattered down the uncarpeted stairs, and Pen opened her
+door a crack.  She heard her father coming up, and from a certain
+lightness in his step guessed that he was bringing what he considered
+to be good news.
+
+Seeing her at her door he broke out: "It's all right, my dear.  It's
+Mr. Riever and Mr. Delehanty.  There's been a misunderstanding it
+seems.  No intention of annoying us.  They apologized most handsomely.
+The man is to be taken away.  All the men are to be taken away."
+
+Pen smiled scornfully.  "Do they expect me to be taken in so easily?"
+she thought.
+
+Pendleton went on: "Mr. Riever said if it would not be presuming too
+much, could he speak to you for a minute?  Wants to apologize to you
+personally.  Better go down, dear.  God knows, this is no time for
+formality!"
+
+It was on Pen's lips to refuse scornfully, but curiosity was strong
+within her.  If she expected to get the better of these men she must
+know what they were up to.  Perhaps they intended to arrest her.  But
+in that case they would hardly have got up this comedy of sending the
+men up and taking them away again.  Virtually she had been under arrest
+while Keesing sat at her door.
+
+Declining the offer of her father's candle, Pen went down.
+
+Riever alone was framed in the opening of the front door, the moonlight
+behind him.  When Pen got close enough she saw Delehanty and Keesing
+waiting in the grass below the porch.  Pen stopped a little more than
+arm's length from Riever.  She couldn't see his face well.
+
+"You needn't be afraid," he said in a voice smooth, yet a little
+truculent, too, a sort of hang-dog voice.  "I just wanted to tell you
+that when I found Delehanty had had the house surrounded, and put a man
+inside I was sore.  I made him call them off.  I didn't want you to
+think I had a hand in it."
+
+Pen was a little disconcerted, this was such a violent change from half
+an hour before.  It was highly characteristic though of Riever to
+ignore everything that had gone before, characteristic of the spoiled
+child of any age.
+
+"Much obliged," she said, trying to keep the note of irony out of her
+voice.
+
+If he heard irony he did not betray it.  "Well ... that's all I wanted
+to say.  That I was sorry you were annoyed ... Will you shake hands on
+it?"
+
+"Surely!" said Pen.  She offered her hand with a mental reservation:
+"If you're deceiving me as I suspect, this doesn't count!"
+
+She thought he would never have done fondling her hand.  She ground her
+teeth and endured it.
+
+"Well ... good-night," he said at last.
+
+"Good-night," said Pen.
+
+When he had taken two steps he stopped.  "I said all his men," he said
+with a sly note creeping into his voice.  "Watch and make sure."
+
+Pen waited in the doorway.  Riever stepping off the porch, spoke to
+Delehanty.  Delehanty put a hand to his lips and blew a shrill whistle.
+Out of various shrubby corners of the grounds figures emerged and
+approached their chief.  Like a scene in a melodrama Pen thought with
+curling lip.  There were six of them.  That was the number she had seen
+enter the grounds.
+
+"Good-night," said Riever in a purring voice.
+
+"Good-night, Miss," fawned Delehanty.
+
+"Good-night, Miss," said Keesing, taking his tone from his betters.
+
+"Good-night," said Pen clearly.
+
+They all moved off in a body towards the gates.
+
+Pen smiling scornfully, turned back up-stairs.  "What sort of an
+imbecile do they take me for? ... Presently they'll come sneaking
+back...  Expect me to lead them to him, do they?"  Suddenly the quality
+of her smile changed.  "Well why not do it? ... It's the best idea I've
+had yet..."  She went into her room in a study.
+
+The big house was laid out on the simplest of plans.  As you entered
+the front door the two drawing-rooms were on the left of the central
+hall, and an immense dining-room on the right, with a pantry behind it
+as big as the living-room in many a cottage.  In the rear extension
+were the kitchen and various offices.  The second floor was divided
+into four great chambers of equal size and a smaller room over the
+entrance where Pen kept her sewing-machine.  Her father slept in the
+room over the dining-room.  It had a door into the room behind it,
+which was his study, work-shop and general receptacle.  Pen had the
+other front room and it also communicated with the room behind it,
+which was called the guest chamber.  The door between the two rooms was
+always supposed to be locked.
+
+The second floor of the rear extension was on a lower level.  That is
+to say you started down the big stairway and reached the rear rooms
+from the turn.  The extension contained the famous bathroom long out of
+repair, various cupboards and store-rooms, and the two servants' rooms
+which looked to the rear.  In the main block of the house there was a
+third story with four more big bedrooms, and above that again was the
+"cupalow."
+
+Pendleton had gone back to bed.  Pen got two lamps and flitted into the
+rear extension.  Her father, accustomed to her peregrinations over the
+house at all hours, paid no attention, even if he heard.  The two
+servants' rooms were not used, but each contained various articles of
+furniture.  Pen lit her lamps and placed them far enough back from the
+windows so that the lamps themselves could not have been seen by
+anybody who might chance to look up from the yard below.  Anyone who
+was not familiar with the house would naturally suppose that the two
+lighted windows were in the same room.
+
+Pen calculated.  "I told him to pack up his things and hide them before
+starting.  That will take him say half an hour.  It will take him
+twenty minutes to cross the fields.  He can't get here in much less
+than an hour.  I'll start in half an hour."
+
+Returning to her own room, she dropped to her knees at one of the front
+windows, and peered over the sill.  She strained her eyes to watch that
+part of the grounds that was within range.  But the very mysteriousness
+of moonlight balked her.  The moon was in the South throwing long
+shadows directly athwart the lawn.  The trees and shrubs of the
+overgrown place offered scores of hiding-places.  More than once she
+thought she saw dark spots that did not belong there, and shadows
+seemed to move.  She could not be sure.  For that matter she knew that
+men could come along the beach below and scramble up the honeysuckle
+vines.  In this way they could surround the house without crossing the
+open space in front.  She was morally certain the detectives had
+returned, but she could not spot them.
+
+At the end of half an hour she dressed herself in her black dress and
+put on stout shoes.  With a wildly beating heart she stole down stairs,
+and let herself softly out on the porch, leaving the door open.  Here,
+for the benefit of anybody who might be watching her, she gave an
+imitation of one terrified and undecided; walking unevenly up and down,
+coming to the edge and peering out, running back in the house in a
+sudden panic, timorously venturing forth again.  Finally she took to
+the shrubbery.
+
+She ran to the gates, scuttling like a rabbit from clump to clump, her
+head continually over her shoulder.  She wished to be followed, but she
+must not of course appear to wish to be followed.  She wished to find
+out too, if she were followed, but she must at all costs keep her
+pursuers from guessing that she was on to them.  It was very
+complicated.
+
+At the gates she hesitated, turning her head this way and that.  The
+question was which way should she lead them.  Eventually she meant to
+take them to the little temple above the pond, but in the meantime she
+had half an hour to kill.  From one of the ground floor windows of the
+cottage a beam of light was streaming out.  Crouching over she ran
+across the intervening grass and peered over the sill.  Surely if
+anybody were watching her this would seem like a natural act.
+
+Riever and Delehanty were within the room.  Delehanty had fallen asleep
+on a couch.  Riever was pacing up and down.  There was no strut in him
+now, he was not on parade.  He moved with his more natural cat-like
+tread, but it was a cat with a load on his back.  When he turned at the
+far end of the room and Pen saw his face, the features were composed
+enough, but in his eyes showed a wild, animal-like torment.  But her
+soft heart was hard against him.  Whatever he might be suffering it was
+only a tithe of what he owed.  The swiftest of glances was sufficient
+for her.  She dropped to the ground like a leaf, and creeping around
+the corner of the house, made for the road in front.
+
+Running by fits and starts she went down the hill to the beach.  She
+lingered in the shadow of a bush looking out.  Nothing human stirred.
+There was a breeze from the Southeast and from the other side of the
+point came a murmur of waves on the beach.  But within the scimitar
+curve of white sand the water was like a mirror.  Three hundred yards
+offshore the _Alexandra_ floated, huge and ghostly in the moonlight,
+all dark except for her riding-light.  Out in the bay the red light on
+Poplar point flashed intermittently.  Out of the vast, gray stillness
+that recurring spark had a dreadful significance--like blood.
+
+Pen retraced her steps more slowly up the hill.  If anyone had followed
+her so far, he would have to let her pass him now.  He would be hidden
+somewhere alongside the road.  The thought made her heart flutter.
+Though she had deliberately provoked it, there was a terrible
+excitement in being hunted.  As she walked she kept her head fixed
+straight ahead, but her darting eyes searched among the bushes on her
+left.  On the other side was a cut-bank which afforded no cover.
+
+And then she saw one of them.  There could be no mistaking it.  In the
+darkest shadow under the branches, the suggestion of a crouching human
+figure still as death.  She could even tell that he was holding his
+head down to keep his white face from betraying him.  He was less than
+ten feet from her.  It was terribly hard to keep her muscles in order
+as she passed, and _just after_ she passed.  But satisfaction was mixed
+with her terror.  Her ruse had not failed.
+
+Leaving the gates on her left she kept on around the turn of the road.
+Here she sought to play with them further by running again, running as
+hard as she could alongside the fence that bounded the vegetable
+garden.  Looking over her shoulder she had glimpses of two pursuers,
+bent double in the road, and darting from shadow to shadow.  She took
+them a quarter of a mile down the road and brought them back to the
+point where her own path struck off behind the cottage into the woods.
+
+At this point she hesitated for a long time looking all around her like
+a person wishing to make finally sure that she was not followed.  As
+long as she stood still nothing stirred of course.  Suddenly she put
+her head down and ran like a deer for the woods.  As soon as she was
+within cover she stopped and looked back.  Her pursuers were startled
+into showing themselves openly on the path.  Three of them.  Pen ran on
+to the little temple and flung herself down to recover her breath and
+await developments.  She sat within the little circle of pillars with
+an arm flung across the cool gravestone and her cheek pillowed on it.
+It was quite dark there.
+
+But nothing happened.  Nobody came plunging after her into the little
+opening.  Not a sound was to be heard.  The excitement of being chased
+died down, and a chill of apprehension struck to Pen's breast.  What
+were they up to?  They couldn't possibly see what she was doing in the
+little temple.  Why didn't they find out then?  The suspense became
+unbearable.  Each minute was an age.  She could have screamed aloud.
+
+Then she heard a twig snap--not in the direction of the path by which
+she had come, but on the other side of the clearing.  It instantly
+became clear to her what was happening, and her breast quieted down.
+She heard other whispers of sounds, the brush of leaves against a
+passing body, a released pebble rolling down the bank.  Naturally if
+they thought Don was in there with her they had to take their
+precautions.  They had sent for help maybe.  Certainly they were now
+surrounding the place.
+
+Then absolute silence fell again, and moment by moment her breast
+became tighter.  It was worse now because she could feel the presences
+around her.  Why didn't they do something?  Suddenly a wicked little
+thought occurred to her.  She smiled and at the same time shook with
+fear.  She commenced to murmur half-audibly to herself.  It was only a
+nursery rhyme, but she meant it to sound like conversation.
+
+It worked.  A dazzling white beam suddenly flashed in her face.  Pen
+screamed and scrambled to her feet.  She did not have to act that.  But
+oh! it was a relief to have it over with.  As she stood up other lights
+were thrown on her.  She could see nothing for the shifting, blinding
+circles.  Some were held on her, others ran all over the place like
+quicksilver, like scrambling little devils of light nosing in the
+corners.  One even ran around under the dome as if it expected to find
+Don clinging there like a bat.
+
+From behind one of the glares came Delehanty's growling voice: "Where
+is he?"
+
+"Who?" said Pen.  She was cool enough now.
+
+"You know who I mean!" He checked on oath.
+
+"I am alone here," said Pen.
+
+"What did you come here for?"
+
+"To pray," she said demurely.
+
+"Hah!"  He was hard put to it to control himself.  "What place is this?"
+
+"The tomb of my ancestors."
+
+Somebody threw a line on the grave stone.  The beautifully carved
+Gothic script was sharply outlined.  A voice began to read:
+
+"Here lies the body of Pendleton Broome, beloved son of Pendleton
+Broome and Mary Camalier.  Who departed this life..."
+
+"Shut up!" growled Delehanty.  To Pen he said: "Look here, I want a
+straight answer.  What are you doing here?"
+
+"I always come here when I wish to be alone," said Pen with delicate
+emphasis.
+
+"Hah! ... Mitchell!"  He conferred with one of his men.
+
+Pen still blinded by their lights could not see what was going on.  A
+man edged around behind her.  Delehanty who had put away his light was
+busy with something in his hands.
+
+"Now!" he said abruptly.
+
+Pen's arms were suddenly pinned to her sides.  As she opened her mouth
+to protest Delehanty pressed his twisted handkerchief between her
+teeth.  Pen struggled furiously, but it was pulled tight and knotted
+behind her head.
+
+Delehanty growled to his men: "Get back in your places.  She's
+evidently got a date with him here.  He'll be here yet.  If you let him
+slip through your fingers, by Gad!  I'll have you all broken."
+
+Pen hearing this, ceased to struggle, and smiled behind the gag.  "Well
+... let them!" she thought.  "It's all to the good!"
+
+Delehanty said to her: "March! young lady!"
+
+Pen, just to keep up appearances, moaned behind the gag, and hung back.
+
+Delehanty pushed her ahead of him in the path.  "Get along back to the
+house with you!" he commanded.
+
+Pen made no further objections.
+
+He accompanied her back to the house.  Reaching the porch he took off
+the gag.
+
+"Thank you," said Pen demurely.
+
+"Get inside," he said. "You won't be feeling so flip in the morning."
+
+He strode back towards the gates.  But there was no certainty in his
+carriage.  He suspected he had been fooled.  Pen all but laughed aloud.
+
+Pen scampered across the porch, and into the house, closing and locking
+the door behind her.  All her being hung on the agonizing question: was
+he there?  She ran back through the hall into the kitchen.  In the dark
+depths of the house her hands served her for eyes.  She knew it so
+well.  Her hand went unerringly to the knob of the door that gave on
+the cellar stairs.  She ran down.  At the foot of the stairs an agony
+of apprehension constricted her throat.  She could not speak aloud.
+
+"Don!" she gasped.
+
+From out of the dark came the answering whisper: "Pen!"
+
+In the ecstasy of relief that flooded her Pen lost her grip on reality
+for a moment.  Her knees gave under her.  She sank down in a heap on
+the earthen floor.
+
+Don sought all around for her in the dark.  "Pen!  Pen!" he whispered
+urgently.
+
+He stumbled against her.  He gathered her up and held her against him.
+She clung around his neck in a sort of desperation.  But the warmth of
+him, the ripple of muscle under his cotton shirt, the strong rise of
+his breast against hers all seemed to pour a new life into her.  He was
+very real!
+
+"Oh, my darling!" she whispered ... "Oh Heavens, what a day!"
+
+"Something has happened?" he said.
+
+In her relief she felt a little light-headed.  "A few things!" she
+giggled.
+
+"Tell me."
+
+"I will.  Let's get out of this hole."
+
+"Is it safe?"
+
+"My dear! ... Did you think I was going to store you among the
+potatoes?"
+
+"I'll carry you up."
+
+"No, I'm all right again.  I must lead you."
+
+She pulled him after her towards the stairs.  She made no allowance for
+his unfamiliarity with the place, and he fell over the bottom step with
+a clatter.  Don went rigid.  Pen laughed as women do in the dark.
+
+"Clumsy!" she whispered.
+
+In the kitchen he asked for water.  She led him to the pail, and held
+the dipper to his lips.  They both drank like hard driven horses, and
+sighed with refreshment.  Then she led him up the back stairs.  At the
+top she left him for a moment while she blew out the lamps in the back
+rooms.  When they got to the main upper hall, through the transom over
+Pendleton's door they heard a sound like a saw being drawn very slowly
+through rotten wood.  It started Pen off again.  She hastily pulled Don
+into her room, and closing her door, smothered her laughter in his
+neck.  It started him going.  They quivered and rocked with suppressed
+laughter.  They finally sank down on a sofa weak, but immensely
+refreshed.  There is nothing like laughter.
+
+"What room is this?" whispered Don.
+
+"My room."
+
+"Oh, Pen!" he murmured on a deep note.
+
+"Don't you like being here?"
+
+He drew her hard against his side.  "Oh Pen! ... I can't tell you how
+it makes me feel!"
+
+"What more natural refuge could you have, dear?"
+
+"But where are you going to keep me, Pen?" he asked.
+
+"Right here."
+
+He drew away from her.  "Oh no, I couldn't let you."
+
+She became angry immediately.  "Why not?  Is it because of the danger
+to my reputation? ... How perfectly silly under the circumstances!"
+
+"It isn't only that," he muttered sullenly.  "It's the same old thing.
+Hiding behind your skirts.  I can't bear it.  Why, suppose I were found
+here?"
+
+All at once they seemed completely divided.  "Oh, you make me so
+angry!" she said helplessly.  "Thinking about what people would say?
+You think more of what people say than you do of me!  What have you and
+I got to do with what people say?"
+
+"You're not quite fair to me," he said.
+
+The note of quiet stubbornness terrified her.  Here was a force she
+could not gauge.  "Oh, we must not quarrel!" she murmured with a catch
+in her breath ... "Oh, Don, I love you so!"
+
+"Oh my Pen!" he murmured gathering her in his arms again.
+
+There was a blessed peaceful interlude.
+
+After awhile she murmured in a small voice: "Then you will stay here
+until we can think up something else?"
+
+But the quiet stubbornness was unaltered.  "I won't promise anything.
+I must be free to decide."
+
+"But Don!  After all the trouble I have had to get you here!  You're in
+my castle, and I must know where I have you.  Mustn't you let me decide
+for the time being?"
+
+"That's just the rub," he said ruefully.  "You're so bossy, Pen.  If
+you had me here right under your thumb I wouldn't be able to call my
+soul my own."
+
+Pen refused to see any humor in the situation.  "Would it matter for a
+little while?"
+
+"You wouldn't want a tame man!"
+
+The ever-present fear leaped to her lips.  "You're thinking of giving
+yourself up!"
+
+"No," he said soberly.  "I've changed my mind about that.  Since I've
+been reading the papers.  I'll keep them on the look until I see a
+chance to make a good fight."
+
+Pen kissed him passionately.  "Ah, that's a load off my breast!" she
+cried.  "That's what kept me awake nights!"
+
+"But I must be allowed to play my own hand," he insisted.
+
+"All right, stubborn! ... Now listen, while I tell you everything that
+happened to-day."
+
+On the sofa near the front windows, with her lips close to his ear she
+told him the story of Blanche Paglar.  How sweet it was to feel in the
+pressure of his hand on hers how his excitement and his hope grew with
+the tale.
+
+He would not let himself hope too far.  When she had come to the end,
+he said cautiously: "Well, that's a beginning.  But it's a wild scheme,
+Pen.  You mustn't bank too much on it.  Suppose you're right about
+Riever--it begins to look as if you were right.--No jury would take the
+testimony of a lot of gangsters against that of the famous millionaire.
+And all old Riever's powerful friends would rally round him.  We're not
+out of the woods yet."
+
+"I don't care so much about convicting Riever so long as we raise a
+sufficient doubt to make a jury afraid to convict you!"
+
+"But it would be a point of honor with that gang to convict me, see?
+... What happened after you got home?"
+
+She told him that part somewhat toned down.  She suppressed the fact of
+Riever's proposal.
+
+Don said wisely: "I believe Riever's falling in love with you!"
+
+Pen smiled and kissed him.
+
+He laughed at her tale of how she had led the detectives into the
+woods, and left them there watching.
+
+"But wait a minute," he said.  "After awhile it will begin to percolate
+into their thick heads that they've been sold.  They'll begin to put
+two and two together.  They'll realize that you drew them away from the
+house on purpose ... Take it from me we'll have a visit from them
+before morning.  You'd better let me go while the going's good!"
+
+Pen clung to him.  "No!  No!  Can't you stay with me an hour without
+beginning to fidget? ... They're going to comb the woods at dawn.
+Where could you go?"
+
+"But they'll search the house first."
+
+"No matter.  I'm on my own ground here.  I'm prepared for them....
+Wait a minute!"
+
+Leaving him, she unlocked the door into the back room, and disappeared
+for a few minutes.  She returned through the other door.
+
+"Where've you been?" he asked.
+
+"Preparing a line of retreat," she said smiling.
+
+"What time is it, Pen?"
+
+"Not midnight yet.  Things have been moving fast."
+
+"You must be worn out, dear.  Lie down and sleep.  I'll keep watch."
+
+"Silly!  Do you think I could sleep with you in the room?"
+
+"Then I'll go in the next room."
+
+"No!  What's an hour or two's sleep? ... Come and sit down again."
+
+On the sofa near the windows she leaned back against him, her head in
+the hollow of his shoulder.  He sunk his cheek in her hair.
+
+"Pen, it's just a week to-day since we met.  Isn't that strange?"
+
+"What's time got to do with it?  I knew the very first moment."
+
+"I, too."
+
+"Story-teller!  The first look you gave me was not that kind at all?"
+
+"What kind was it?"
+
+"Oh, a kind of ... kind of sprightly look.  Observe little bright-eyes!"
+
+"Pen!"
+
+She laughed delightedly.
+
+"Well, it happened so soon afterwards it doesn't count."
+
+"I wonder how it is to a man," she murmured dreamily.  "With me ...
+well it was like hating you, you upset me so!"
+
+"You made me a little sore, too.  You were so bossy!"
+
+"You always say that!"
+
+It was his turn to chuckle in his throat.
+
+"Dearest, I have a confession to make to you," she whispered.  "Do you
+know, when I first read that story in the newspapers I was glad."
+
+"Glad?"
+
+"Yes, of course I knew that it wasn't true....  And I knew that I
+shouldn't lose you."
+
+"Pen! ... You wouldn't have lost me anyway.  I was thinking about it
+when you came down to the tent splashing through the water.  I wasn't
+going."
+
+"Oh Don how sweet that is to my ears! ... Sometimes I have felt that
+circumstances forced me on you."
+
+"Nothing in it!  You'd already got your hooks into me."
+
+"What an expression!"
+
+"You made goodness seem so charming!"
+
+"I, good? ... If you knew!"
+
+"I do know.  I know exactly what I mean.  There's so much disgusting
+hypocrisy in the world a fellow gets to think that the bad people are
+the only honest ones.  You taught me better."
+
+Pen turned and clung to him.  A tear or two rolled down her cheeks.
+"Oh, my dear! ... It isn't true! ... But it comforts me so!"
+
+Enfolded in happiness and delicious peace, they became sleepy in spite
+of themselves.  Notwithstanding his sleepy protests, she drew herself
+away from him.
+
+"Stretch out," she whispered.  "I will sit on the stool beside you
+where I can look at you.  I love so to look at you!"
+
+"Pen! ... No!  You sleep! ... I'll keep watch!"
+
+But he sunk lower and lower.  Soon he was gone.  Pen sitting beside him
+could gaze her fill.  The moon was coming in the front windows now.
+The direct rays did not fall on him, but there was light enough for her
+to see.  All relaxed and helpless like that he seemed to belong to her
+more completely than he ever did awake--and stubborn.  She could
+scarcely bear to look at him.
+
+In the end she slept too with her cheek on his breast.
+
+She was awakened, she knew not how long afterwards, by a sound.  Even
+in the instant of waking she recognized the sound.  It was the stealthy
+creak of the tin roof outside her window.  At the touch of her hand on
+his cheek Don awoke all of a piece.  He slipped noiselessly to the
+floor.  They crept to the middle of the room.
+
+With her lips at his ear she breathed: "There's a man on the porch
+roof."
+
+"Did he look in?"
+
+"I don't think so.  He couldn't have seen you through the screen."
+
+"If he tries to come in...?"
+
+"Slip through the door behind you."
+
+Don made to creep away from her.  She laid a hand on his arm.  "Wait!"
+
+There was no further sound from the man outside.
+
+"He's not coming in," Pen whispered.  "He's out there to cut off your
+escape."
+
+A tremendous rat-tat-tat resounded through the empty halls.
+
+"I shouldn't have slept!" murmured Don.
+
+"It's all right!" whispered Pen.  "I intended you should stay here."
+
+"I feel trapped within walls!"
+
+"You are safest here!"
+
+The knocking was imperiously repeated.  Outside Pen's door they heard
+her father's agitated voice.
+
+"Pen, are you there?"
+
+"Yes, Dad," she said coolly.
+
+"Stay where you are, my dear.  I'll go down."
+
+For the third time that night the worthy little man pattered down
+stairs in his bare feet.
+
+Pen opened her door an inch.  She heard her father's prudent inquiry
+through the closed door, and a gruff voice outside reply:
+
+"Open the door!"
+
+Pendleton remonstrated, and the voice, Delehanty's, was brutally raised:
+
+"Open the door or I'll smash it in!"
+
+She heard the key squeak in the lock.  Pendleton's remonstrances were
+drowned in the sounds made by the entrance of a number of men.
+Pendleton's voice was raised in agonized tones.  Delehanty said:
+
+"We're going to search the house!"
+
+Pen had the sense that her little father was trying to bar them out by
+main strength.  Signing to Don to remain where he was, she hastened to
+the head of the stairs.  She called down:
+
+"Let them in, father.  We have nothing to hide."
+
+Returning to her room she locked the door.  Her father came up stairs
+accompanied by a pair of shod feet.  His voice at Pen's door was
+utterly bewildered.
+
+"They insist on searching the house ... searching the house!  At this
+hour!"
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Pen.
+
+"They say if you'll stay quietly in your room they'll leave that until
+last.  There's a man out here on guard.  Better dress, dear."
+
+"I shall be all right," said Pen.
+
+She turned and kissed Don with a smile on her lips.  Her eyes shone
+with the light of battle.
+
+He looked more dubious.  "Is your way of retreat still open?" he
+whispered.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Well then...?"
+
+"Wait till they come up stairs."
+
+She listened with her ear at the crack of the door.  Vague sounds arose
+from below.  She was tormented by her inability to hear exactly.
+Finally she motioned to Don to stand back out of any possible range of
+vision, and opening the door, she put her head around it.
+
+Instantly a flash-light was thrown on her and a voice said:
+
+"You can't come out, Miss."
+
+"I don't want to come out," said Pen coolly.  "I want to hear what's
+going on in my house."
+
+Now her ear practised in that house, could follow their movements very
+well.  They were in the cellar.  They took no precautions for silence.
+They came stamping up the cellar stairs, and were to be heard in the
+kitchen and the outer kitchen.  They spread through the main rooms of
+the house.  Pen smiled to herself, hearing them move heavy objects of
+furniture, looking for hiding-places in the walls.  Finally they
+started up the main stairway, but were diverted into the rear
+extension.  Doors were opened and shut, furniture pulled about.  As
+they started to move back towards the front, Pen closed her door.
+
+"They're coming!" she breathed in Don's ear.  "Now's the time!"
+
+She took him to the door leading to the rear room.  "Lock this door
+behind you and put the key in your pocket."  She pointed to an open
+window in the corner of the room facing the rear.  "There's your way
+out.  The ironing-board is on the floor under the window.  Stretch it
+across catty-cornered to the sash of the bathroom window.  I pulled
+down the top sash ready for you.  As you go, turn and close this window
+behind you.  When you get in the bath-room pull the board after you.
+Don't touch that window.  It squeaks.  Wait in the bath-room with the
+door open.  If you hear anybody coming that way slip down the back
+stairs and into the cellar.  While you're in the bathroom watch this
+window.  When they're through with this room I'll raise the window and
+leave it up.  That's your signal to come back."
+
+There was a peremptory knock on the door of Pen's room.  The lovers
+pressed hands and parted.  Slipping through the door, Don closed it
+noiselessly and turned the key.
+
+"What is it?" Pen asked.
+
+The voice of Delehanty brusquely replied: "Open the door, please."
+
+Pen wanted all the time she could gain.  "Is my father there?" she
+asked as if in doubt.
+
+"Yes, my dear," said Pendleton quaveringly.  "Please open."
+
+"One moment!"
+
+She turned down the covers of her bed, and rumpled them.  Her ears were
+strained for sounds from the back, but she heard nothing.  So much the
+better!
+
+"You've had plenty of time to dress!" said Delehanty harshly.
+
+She opened the door.  There was a small crowd in the hall.  One carried
+a brilliant acetylene lantern which filled the place with a strong
+white light and threw grotesque shadows upwards.  All the detectives
+had their hats on; some were short, some tall.  It was like a
+caricature in violent chiaroscuro.  As for Pendleton, he had his pants
+pulled over his night-shirt and his bare feet looked piteous.  A
+picture of ineffectiveness, he was still carrying a lighted candle in
+all that glare.
+
+Without so much as by your leave Delehanty strode into the room with
+three of his men at his heels.  The chief was chewing an extinct cigar
+which smelled vilely.  Pen choked with rage.  She bit her lips to keep
+back an outburst.  Her father went to her, and squeezed her hand
+imploringly.  The three men spread around the room like well-trained
+dogs.  One could imagine them sniffing.  They were armed with electric
+torches with which to illumine dark corners.  Delehanty went direct to
+the door into the rear room and rattled it.
+
+"What's behind here?" he demanded.
+
+"Another bed room," said Pen.  "The guest-room."
+
+"Guest-room?" sneered Delehanty.  "Where's the key?"
+
+"The door has been locked for many years.  I couldn't tell you."
+
+"Well what's the door from that room into the hall doing locked?"
+
+"Because I keep certain things of value in there.  I don't want the
+servants to go in."
+
+Pen's father must have wondered at this answer.  But perhaps he was too
+confused to take in what she was saying.  At any rate he kept quiet.
+
+"Is that key lost too?" sneered Delehanty.
+
+"No," said Pen calmly.  "It's among the other keys on the rack in my
+sewing-room.  My father will get it for you."
+
+Pendleton trotted obediently away with his candle.
+
+When he came back with it Delehanty's sleuths had completed their
+search of Pen's room.  The whole party passed around through the hall
+to the door of the guest-room.  The men showed excitement.  They
+thought they had their man.  Delehanty flung the door open and stepped
+back.  He ordered his men to cast the light of their electric torches
+inside.  This was to draw the fire of the supposed occupant.  Pen's lip
+curled.  Finally the men ventured across the threshold.
+
+The acetylene lantern filled the great bare chamber with light.  It was
+meagerly furnished, a gigantic bedroom set of the carved walnut period,
+the bed with an old-fashioned mosquito bar, an air-tight stove, an
+humble little rocking-chair.  The great expanse of white wall was
+guiltless of paper or tint, and showed long fine cracks running in
+every direction like the map of a complicated river system.  The floor
+was covered with matting.
+
+Delehanty sniffed.  "The air is fresh.  There's been a window open in
+here."
+
+Pen's heart contracted.  "The room is aired every day," she said
+quickly.
+
+Delehanty went to the window in the corner.  The two windows at the
+side of the room were shuttered on the outside.  He cast his light
+along the sill.
+
+"There's no dust here," he said accusingly.
+
+"There's no dust anywhere in my house," said Pen.
+
+Delehanty commanded the window to be opened.  The acetylene light was
+held outside.  This was the crucial moment.  Pen held her breath.
+
+"What is there?" asked Delehanty.
+
+"Eighteen or twenty foot drop, sir."
+
+"Any gutter pipe or lightning rod?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Close the window."
+
+Pen breathed again.
+
+The bare room offered but few places of concealment, under the bed,
+within the washstand, a shallow clothes closet in the wall.  They even
+looked in the bureau drawers.  Finally Delehanty with a grunt, moved
+towards the door.  Pen's heart swelled big with triumph.
+
+She glanced at Delehanty's cigar.  "Would you mind leaving the window
+open?" she said cuttingly.
+
+At a nod from the chief, one of the men flung up the sash.  Pen felt a
+little quiver of inward laughter.  There was something humorous in
+making the enemy transmit one's signals.  All left the room and Pen
+locked the door.  She handed the key to her father.
+
+"Please put it where you got it."
+
+Delehanty fixed her with an irascible, suspicious eye.  "You come along
+with us the rest of the way, Miss.  I want no trickery!"
+
+Pen shrugged.
+
+The search went on, that queer crew straggling through the rooms
+accompanied by their grotesque up-flung shadows.  Through Pen's
+sewing-room and into Pendleton's bed-room.  From thence they passed
+into the extraordinary room behind where he kept all his "Collections."
+He never threw anything away.  Everything under the sun was to be found
+there.  All around the walls were rickety, home-made tables heaped with
+his impedimenta.
+
+All this occupied the searchers quite a while.  They threw his stuff
+about regardless of his protests.
+
+Finally there was the third story which Pen had long ago given up to
+dust and spiders and last of all the "cupalow" into which Keesing to
+Pen's amusement, ascended with drawn revolver.
+
+In the end Delehanty stamped down-stairs in a villainous temper, his
+soft-footed sleuths at his heels.
+
+At the front door Pendleton attempted to recover his dignity.  "Now I
+trust you'll favor me with some explanation," he began.
+
+"Ah! ask your daughter for the explanation!" snarled the detective.
+"Take my advice, and keep her home nights!"
+
+They all went.  Pendleton turned to Pen aghast.
+
+"What did he mean by that?"
+
+But Pen's heart was dancing.  An irresponsible gale of laughter caught
+her up.  She had a wicked impulse to see her father's bare feet
+twinkle.  She caught his wrists (he still had the candle) and attempted
+to whirl him around.
+
+"Oh joy!  Oh joy!  Oh joy!" she cried.  "They're gone!"
+
+"_Pen_!  Have you gone crazy," he protested.
+
+"Yes, it's the heat!"
+
+"Be quiet!  What did the man mean?"
+
+"How do I know?  A man will say anything when he's sore ... Come on
+back to bed."
+
+She pulled him wildly to the foot of the stairs, Pendleton leaning
+back, and his bare feet slapping the floor absurdly.  Pen laughed so
+she had to sit on the bottom step to recover.
+
+"Your levity is very ill-timed!" he said severely.
+
+That only made her laugh the more.  "Come on!  Come on!" she said,
+dragging him up-stairs.
+
+At the door of his room she kissed him, and gave him a push inside.
+She flew across to her own room and let herself in.
+
+"Don!  Don!" she just breathed, holding out her hands.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+She flew to the door between the two rooms.  It yielded to her hand.
+The key was in it.  So he had come back.  The window in the corner was
+still open.  It was very dark in the back room.  She felt all around
+for him, softly whispering his name.  Her breast contracted with
+apprehension.  She ran back into the front room to make a light.
+
+As soon as the candle flame grew up she saw a piece of paper pinned to
+the wooden mantel.  It looked like the fly leaf torn out of a book.
+There was a pencil scrawl upon it.
+
+
+"Dearest: Writing in the dark.  That was too near a thing.  Can't let
+you take such risks.  I'm off on my own.  Don't worry.  Love.
+
+"D."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DAYS OF SUSPENSE
+
+Pen lay on her bed wide-eyed and dry-eyed until near dawn.  It did not
+lessen her misery any that a good part of it was anger at having her
+will balked.  She accused Don by turn of callousness, of ingratitude,
+of folly; she tried to tell herself that he was not worth saving, but
+without abating any of her torments of anxiety as to his fate.  It was
+worse than anxiety; she had a horrible, dull certainty that he would be
+taken as soon as it became light.  Like a wilful child intent only upon
+having his own way, he had run blindly out into their trap.
+
+After the briefest period of unconsciousness she was awakened by a stir
+outside the house.  Looking out of the window she saw that the sun was
+but just up, the great square shadow of the house reached almost to the
+edge of the bank.  Nevertheless early as it was, the house grounds were
+full of people, and more were arriving through the gates.  These were
+Islanders, fisher-folk, or men from the farms in earth-colored
+garments.  Under the bank she could hear the put-put of arriving
+motor-boats.  Among the people the gross figure of Delehanty was
+conspicuous, moving about, picking out men here and there.
+
+Well, if he was still looking for men Don was not yet caught,
+nevertheless, Pen's heart sickened at the sight.  It was clear enough
+what was happening.  During the last few days popular interest in the
+chase had fallen off, but the news of the finding of the canoe had
+revived it.  The blood lust was aroused again.  When she got down to
+the kitchen Pen learned from the excited negroes that Riever had
+increased the reward to ten thousand dollars.  That was what had
+brought the crowd.
+
+Like a woman who had died and whose body was condemned to drag on, Pen
+started things going in the kitchen and set the table for breakfast.
+When her father came into the dining-room even he who noticed so
+little, was struck by the contrast of her present look with the
+laughing mænad who had thrust him into his room the night before.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked sharply.
+
+Pen shrugged.  She had to make some excuse.  "Last night was too much
+for me," she muttered.
+
+"I thought so!" he said severely.  "I told you you were acting wildly
+... Riever had nothing to do with that affair," he added irrelevantly.
+
+"What difference does it make?"
+
+Pendleton had already been out of doors, and he could talk about
+nothing but the latest developments of the case.  In his new interest,
+his resentment against Delehanty had cooled.  Pen could not gather from
+his talk what they were saying about her.  No doubt they spared his
+feelings--or mocked him without his being aware of it.  With the
+curious blindness that was characteristic of him, he had not yet
+connected the finding of the canoe with his daughter.
+
+"How strange that Counsell should have come back here after having
+paddled away!" he said.  "And yet, how natural!  It was the last thing
+anyone would suppose that he would do!"
+
+Pen let him run on, half attending.
+
+Worse was in store for her.  Her father said:
+
+"Of course Riever has been entirely discreet in making his new
+announcement.  He had it written out and sent it over to the Island
+last night to be posted up outside the store.  His offer reads: 'Ten
+thousand dollars for the apprehension of Donald Counsell.'  But
+everybody understands that it means dead or alive.  Many of the men are
+armed."
+
+Pen thought she had experienced the extremity of torment.  But this was
+saving for her.  She half rose from her chair with a face of horror,
+and dropped back again.
+
+"But this is murder!" she gasped.
+
+"Eh?" said little Pendleton blinking.
+
+"Cold-blooded murder! ... Cynical murder! ... To set an armed mob after
+a defenseless man ... with the promise of reward!"
+
+"But he's desperate.  If he's cornered he'll fight..."
+
+"He is unarmed!" said Pen.
+
+Her father's jaw dropped.  "How do you know?"
+
+She saw that she had betrayed herself, but she was beyond caring.
+Pushing her chair back she went to the mantel and resting her arms upon
+it dropped her head on them.  "Oh God! what sort of a world is it where
+such things are possible!" she cried.
+
+"Pen, what am I to think from this?" he stammered aghast.
+
+She could not be still in her agony.  She paced up and down stretching
+up her arms for the ease to her breast which was not to be had.
+"Whatever you like!" she said.
+
+"You have been seeing him?  You know where he is?"
+
+"I don't know now."
+
+"My God!"
+
+Pen hurried from the room, leaving him in a state of collapse.
+
+She still went about her daily tasks like a piece of mechanism.  She
+had to keep in some sort of motion.  She experienced strange lapses,
+discovered herself offering whole corn in her hand to the newly-hatched
+chicks; came to to find herself in places without any notion of what
+she had come for.  Her father kept out of her way.
+
+It took a long time to organize the searchers.  Delehanty was not
+taking any chance of failure.  He was in no particular hurry since he
+had already sent a large party by boat to the head of the creek to cut
+off any escape up the Neck.  Finally about ten o'clock the rest were
+ready.  They set off in three parties, the first making its way along
+the river shore to comb the woods on the Absolom's Island side; the
+second setting off towards the lighthouse to surround the pond in the
+woods; the third and largest party heading straight back by the Neck
+road.  Their instructions were to deploy along the edge of the woods,
+and wait until they got in touch with the parties on either flank.  Two
+lads who brought motor-cycles over from the Island were delegated to
+act as messengers between Delehanty and the searchers.
+
+When they had gone an ominous Sabbath quiet descended on Broome's
+Point, which was harder to bear than the confusion.  Delehanty went off
+to the cottage.  There was no one to be seen but a few of the
+yellow-faced squatters' women from up the Neck who peered from under
+their sun-bonnets with shy, half-human eyes, and a group of old men
+standing by the porch discussing bygone murders with zest.
+
+Later, Pen came upon her father in the back kitchen, or dairy,
+evidently seeking to waylay her.  He seemed not greatly affected by the
+scene in the dining-room, only for a hang-dog air, and a difficulty in
+meeting her glance.  As a matter of fact Pen's tragic eyes intimidated
+him.  For himself, he had been absorbed in trifles for so long that he
+could not feel anything very deeply.
+
+He said: "I suppose you've forgotten that we were to lunch on the yacht
+to-day."
+
+Pen stared at him.  _Still_ he had not understood!
+
+"I suppose you don't want to go," he said quickly.
+
+"No," said Pen.
+
+"What will Mr. Riever think," he said plaintively.
+
+"I don't care."
+
+The gathering storm on her brows warned him not to go any further.  But
+he still hung around like a child.
+
+To get rid of him Pen said: "Why don't you go?"
+
+He brightened.  "Well, I wasn't sure if it was proper..."
+
+"Oh go ahead!  Tell him I'm sick.  Tell him anything you like."
+
+"Well I will if you think it's all right.  I want to talk business with
+him anyway."
+
+He donned the old frock coat and the comical, flat straw hat and set
+off as blithely as a child with a penny in its hand.  Pen's glance
+after him was bitter.  Nevertheless she was thankful to be rid of him.
+
+There came a time when Pen could no longer keep up even the pretense of
+doing her chores.  Always with her mind's eyes she was following the
+searchers.  They had come to the edge of the woods.  They were
+spreading out.  They were waiting until the parties on either side came
+up.  Now they had climbed the fence and were advancing slowly with
+their guns held ready; ignorant, passionate men with their guns cocked!
+She went to her room and paced up and down with her clenched hands
+pressed to her breast.  She could not stay there either.  She came down
+on the porch where she could hear better and paced endlessly up and
+down, careless of who might be a witness to her agitation.  All her
+faculties were concentrated on hearing.  She was listening for shots.
+
+Time passed and there was no news.  She sent Ellick, the more
+intelligent of Aunt Maria's sons down to the beach to pick up what he
+could.  One or two negroes had come over in the boats.  This was
+regarded as a white man's business and they were not allowed to take
+part in it.  Nothing transpired until mid-afternoon when Ellick came
+back to say that the motorcycle boys had brought in Counsell's camping
+outfit which had been found in the woods.  Of Counsell himself there
+was no word.
+
+A wild hope arose in Pen's breast.  Suppose after all he had succeeded
+in getting away up the Neck before the line was drawn across it!
+
+Her hope soon sickened though.  What good if he had escaped for the
+moment?  There was but the one road eighty miles long, by which he
+could reach cities and crowds and safety.  And by this time everybody
+along that road was on the _qui vive_ to catch him, their mouths
+watering at the ten thousand dollar reward.  What chance had he of
+succor?  Where could he get food?  Or on that sandy peninsula, water?
+
+She tormented her brain with futile calculations.  Could he or could he
+not have made it?  Delehanty had dispatched the party up the creek
+immediately after searching the house.  Pen had heard the boats set
+off.  By that time Don had had half an hour's start.  A man walks
+perhaps four miles an hour, the boats averaged seven.  It was four
+miles to the head of the creek, and but a step from the landing to the
+Neck road.  Still Don ought to have got there first.  But he might have
+turned aside to get something from his hidden store in the woods!
+Pen's brain whirled dizzily.
+
+At other times she pictured him crouching white-faced in the bush,
+listening to the relentless slow approach of the searchers, and knowing
+that the other side was watched too.  Then the dash for freedom, the
+shots ... That picture came back again and again.  She could not shut
+it out.  How gladly she would have heard the news that he had been
+brought in--unhurt.
+
+At five o'clock she beheld her father turning in at the gate
+accompanied by Riever.  At the sight of the latter Pen saw red.
+Hideous little creature lunching on his fine yacht while his dollars
+sent men into the woods to murder!  And now to come strutting ashore
+for an afternoon stroll with his expensive cigar cocked between his
+lips!  How dared he present himself to her!  Her impulse was to project
+herself down off the porch and tell him!  But a last strand of prudence
+held.  She went to her room instead.
+
+There she struggled with her feelings.  Five o'clock!  Faint though it
+might be, there was a real chance that Don had escaped.  She must
+therefore go on fighting for him.  And in order to fight for him
+effectually she must maintain some sort of relations with his loathsome
+enemy.
+
+There was a knock on her door, and her father said timidly: "Mr. Riever
+is down stairs, my dear."
+
+Pen answered composedly: "Very well.  I'll be down directly."
+
+Pendleton was delighted.  "Thank you, daughter," he purred.
+
+It induced a fresh access of anger in Pen.  He had nothing to thank her
+for!
+
+Pendleton pattered happily down-stairs.  Pen washed and dressed, never
+ceasing to admonish herself, and in the end achieved a fair measure of
+self-command, though her nerves were in bad shape.
+
+Riever was waiting with a certain air of bravado.  Only an involuntary
+roll to his eyes betrayed the dark passions that ate him.  She greeted
+him calmly.  He looked secretly relieved.
+
+"I scarcely expected to see you," he said smoothly.  "I just came to
+enquire how you are."
+
+"I'm all right," said Pen.
+
+"And to express my indignation at what happened last night.  Delehanty
+certainly goes beyond all bounds!  When I get back to New York I shall
+talk to the Commissioner about it!"
+
+"Oh, the man must do his work," said Pen.  "Surely, he doesn't expect
+me to be taken in by this palaver!" she thought.
+
+"He's supposed to exercise some discretion ... You're really all right
+again?"
+
+"Quite all right."
+
+"I'm so glad!"
+
+It came to her that he didn't expect her to be taken in.  He was
+satisfied if she would only appear to be taken in.  For different
+reasons he was just as anxious to maintain relations as she was.  He
+just wanted everything unpleasant covered up.  That was the spoiled
+child of it.  Pen thought: "I believe he'd actually marry me without
+inquiring into my feelings."  Well, it made it easier for her.
+
+Pendleton made some transparent excuse to leave the room.  Riever's
+shifty eyes gave a roll of terror, thinking that perhaps Pen might now
+insist on dragging the truth into the light.
+
+Pen however only said: "I'm surprised to see you on foot this
+afternoon."
+
+His face turned smug again.  "I like walking," he said.  "It's my
+ridiculous people that insist on having me carried every step."
+
+"Do you walk much in New York?" asked Pen.
+
+He was flattered by her interest.  "Yes, very much," he said.
+
+"But I forget, you don't live in the city, do you?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Have you a home there, too?"
+
+"Well, not exactly a home, but a very pleasant little lodging."
+
+"Ah, an apartment."
+
+"No, I detest apartments.  One always feels as if the hall servants
+were spying on your comings and goings."
+
+"You stay at your club then?"
+
+"No, clubs are all very well in their way, but I'm not a clubby person.
+I like to spread about among my own things.  In a club too, the
+servants are always under your feet.  In New York I like to get away
+from servants altogether.  I am not so dependent on them as you seem to
+think."
+
+Pen's heart began to beat a little thickly.  "And have you such a
+place?" she asked with interest.  Apparently they were back just where
+they had been before the violent scene of the previous night.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do tell me about it."
+
+"It's a quaint little house in an unfashionable neighborhood.  It
+stands in the name of my valet.  The beauty of it is none of my
+neighbors know me and I can go and come as I please.  It's a _petit
+maison_ in the French style, a little _entresol_ below, overhead three
+tall windows lighting the _salon_, then a receding attic, and that's
+all.  I don't suppose there's another house like it in town."
+
+"And the inside?" said Pen.
+
+"A _salle a manger_ on the ground floor looking out on a little formal
+garden at the back.  On the main floor the _salon_ in front and a
+bedroom in the rear.  In the attic, servants rooms.  Just a little
+house for one....  Or two," he added with a sidelong glance.
+
+"How interesting!" said Pen.  "I'd like to see it."
+
+"I hope you will some day."
+
+"In what part of the town is it?" asked Pen casually.
+
+"On Thirty-Ninth Street east of Lexington."
+
+Pen lowered her eyes to hide the glint of satisfaction in them.  "This
+will help Blanche," she thought.  "I'll write it to-night."
+
+Presently he rose to go.  "Tell me you will," he said.
+
+"Will what?" murmured Pen.
+
+"Come to see my little house some day?"
+
+"Nothing is impossible," said Pen turning away her head.  If he chose
+to read coquetry in the action, that was his look-out.
+
+He held her hand loverly-wise for a long moment, Pen steeling herself
+not to shudder.  Then he left the room.
+
+Pen began to laugh but there was no sound of mirth in it.  She began to
+laugh and she could not stop again.  The tears ran down her face and
+her whole body was shaken with tearing sobs.  She ran to her room.  She
+was horribly unstrung.  It was long before she could get hold of
+herself again.
+
+The collapse eased the strain on her nerves.  She came down-stairs and
+was able to resume her usual round of tasks.  Time was passing, and
+still no bad news had been received.  Hope grew stronger.  Finally word
+was brought down the road that the search party had joined forces with
+the line of guards drawn across the Neck, and Don Counsell had not been
+taken.  Pen was able to face the night unafraid.
+
+She presently learned that Delehanty had formed his men into several
+camps for the night.  The automobile was kept busy running up the road
+with supplies for them.  At the same time he was preparing to have the
+road well patrolled along its whole course through the woods.  After
+dark a fugitive could not travel any distance except by the road.
+
+The night came on muggy and still and Pen was attacked by a fresh
+anxiety.  For clouds of mosquitoes arose.  She pictured Don fainting
+with hunger and thirst, and unable even to make a smudge for fear of
+betraying himself, vainly attempting to protect himself from the
+insects.
+
+She had a wild hope that he might be driven back to her.  When the
+house had been searched they had found the open cellar door, and in the
+morning Delehanty had sent a man to shut the doors and screw them down.
+Before she went to bed Pen took lantern and screw driver and satisfying
+herself that she was not watched at the moment, knelt behind the bushes
+and opened the doors.  She also left the way open for Don to return to
+her room by the route that he knew of.
+
+She went to bed praying that she might awaken to find him kneeling on
+the floor beside her.  She did sleep for awhile, for Nature must have
+her due, but when she awoke she was still alone.
+
+When she came down-stairs in the morning she heard a new sound that
+froze her soul, the deep bay of hounds.  Theodo' came into the kitchen,
+his eyes rolling wildly in an ashy face, to say that a couple of
+"man-huntin' dawgs" had been brought over from the Eastern shore to be
+put on Counsell's tracks.  These mythical creatures filled the negro
+with an extremity of terror.  Nothing would tempt him out of doors
+again.  Meanwhile Pen's collie, Doug, locked up in the barn, hearing
+these trespassers on his preserve, and he unable to get at them, went
+frantic with rage.
+
+The bloodhounds were taken to the spot in the woods where Don's cache
+had been discovered, and were given the scent from Don's clothes.  They
+picked up his tracks without difficulty and came back over the fields,
+giving tongue straight to the cellar door.  Delehanty finding it
+unlocked again, searched the house once more.  The dogs were led around
+the house.  Pen observing from within, saw that they picked up the
+trail again outside the kitchen window.  So Don had gone out that way.
+However they were soon confused amidst the maze of tracks that tramped
+down the house grounds in every direction.  Again and again their
+guardians led them over the ground with no better success.
+
+Meanwhile, Delehanty having made a new disposition of his forces, the
+search in the woods was resumed.  He had more men at his disposal on
+this day, and a second line of guards was drawn across the Neck higher
+up.  Additional detectives arrived from New York and Baltimore, and
+these were dispatched by horse and motor to search every cabin within
+miles.  At the same time motor-boats were patrolling all the adjacent
+shores, so that if the fugitive was forced out on the beach at any
+point he would instantly be sighted.
+
+Notwithstanding these measures the second day passed like the first
+with neither sight nor sound of the fugitive.  It was believed that he
+was still in the neighborhood, because the bloodhounds, though they
+were led far and wide through the woods and up the road, had discovered
+no tracks leading away from Broome's Point.
+
+When the morning of the third day broke Pen had reached the point of
+desperation again.  Not for a moment all night had she closed her eyes.
+She was now convinced that Don was lying exhausted and starving in some
+hidden spot in the woods.  Probably no longer even able to give himself
+up.  For she was sure he would not willingly perish without a fight to
+clear his name.  When she first came out of the house the sight of a
+pair of buzzards circling high against the blue, turned her faint and
+sick.
+
+To spend another day of inaction was unthinkable.  Madness lay that
+way.  There was no longer any question of helping him to escape.  If he
+was anywhere near he must be found, whatever might come of it.  In her
+extremity Pen went to Delehanty to tell him she was going to take part
+in the search.
+
+The detective was considerably taken aback.  He pushed out his lower
+lip and glowered at Pen.  "What's the idea?" he demanded.
+
+"I want him found."
+
+"It isn't so long ago since you wanted to lose him."
+
+Pen shrugged.
+
+"Have you any information?" he demanded.
+
+"No.  But I know these woods."
+
+"We all know them now," said Delehanty dryly.  He considered for a
+moment.  "Come back in half an hour and I'll talk to you," he said
+brusquely.
+
+Pen supposed that he wanted to consult with Riever.  She was in no
+humor to wait.
+
+"You forget I don't have to have your permission to search my own
+place," she said.  "I offer to work with you.  If you don't want me to
+I'll go ahead alone."  She turned to leave.
+
+"Hold on a minute!" said the detective, "you satisfy me that you're on
+the square with me, and I'll work with you fast enough."
+
+Pen was able to tell him the truth--without telling him the whole
+truth.  "It's very simple," she said.  "I don't want him to starve on
+the place, that's all."
+
+"Humph!  You've lost touch with him, eh?" said Delehanty.
+
+Pen was silent.  It was of little moment to her what they _thought_ so
+they did not know anything.
+
+"What's your plan?" asked Delehanty.
+
+"For one thing," said Pen, "the fields have never been searched.  I see
+you send your men up the road every morning.  There are hollows in the
+fields where a man could lie concealed.  Some of the fields are growing
+up with young pine that would afford cover."
+
+Delehanty looked at her with unwilling respect.  "Anything else?" he
+asked.
+
+"If he's in the woods when he heard the searchers approach how easy it
+would be to climb a tree until they had passed."
+
+"Are you going to search every tree in the woods?" he asked
+sarcastically.
+
+"No," said Pen.
+
+"Will you take a couple of my men along with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+Delehanty scowled darkly.
+
+"I shall call him as I go," said Pen.  "If he saw or heard others with
+me he wouldn't be so likely to answer."
+
+"Suppose you find him and he refuses to give himself up?"
+
+"After three days without food he'd hardly be in a position to resist."
+
+"Would you undertake to bring him in?"
+
+"You can lend me a revolver if you want.  I have none."
+
+"Not on your life!" sneered Delehanty.
+
+Pen shrugged.  She had only mentioned the revolver as a bit of stage
+business anyway.
+
+"Go and find him if you want," said Delehanty, "but excuse me from
+taking any chances of having my gun slipped to him."
+
+Pen went back to the house and made up a packet of sandwiches.  As she
+was setting out the second time she ran into Riever coming in by the
+drive.  He had evidently been with Delehanty, and under his forced air
+of politeness an extraordinary conflict of feelings was suggested;
+hope, distrust and a gnawing curiosity.  He would not speak of what was
+in his mind, of course.  "Where are you setting out for so busily?" he
+asked with a false air of blitheness.
+
+Pen was blunt enough.  "I believe this man is starving somewhere on the
+place, and I'm going to find him if I can."
+
+Riever put on a look of gladness and delight.  The guiding rule of his
+kind is that by assuming a thing to be so you make it so.  He therefore
+assumed that Pen had come over to his side, that the millions had won
+out, that he and she were now one in sympathy.  It need hardly be
+mentioned though, that his eye still rolled with a hideous doubt.
+
+"Oh, that's fine of you!" he said ... "But it's dangerous!"
+
+"He wouldn't hurt me," said Pen.
+
+Riever ground his teeth secretly.  "How can you be sure?" he said with
+a great air of solicitude.
+
+"Because I helped him in the beginning.  I fed him."
+
+"But you've thought better of it now?" murmured Riever.
+
+"I'm going to find him if I can."
+
+"I believe you're out after the reward!" Riever said, with a ghastly
+sort of facetiousness.
+
+Pen caught at the suggestion.  If she were obliged to bring Don in, the
+money might make all the difference to them.  "Well, why not?" she
+said.  "I could use the money as well as anybody."
+
+There was a quality of eagerness in her voice that could hardly have
+been feigned.  For the moment it lulled his doubts.  "There's nobody
+I'd rather pay it to," he said grinning.
+
+"You mean that?" said Pen.  "If I give him up to you, will you pay me
+the reward?"
+
+"If you give him up to me I'll double it!" he said meaningly.
+
+"All right!" said Pen.  "If I'm successful to-day, I'll hold you to
+that."  She made to walk on.
+
+Riever's face was full of triumph, but there was still a fear too,
+another sort of fear.  "Wait a minute," he said.  "Suppose you can't
+handle him?"
+
+"I have no fear of that," said Pen.
+
+He slipped his hand in his side pocket.  "Here," he said, "take this."
+He produced an automatic pistol.  "Do you know how to use it?"
+
+She shook her head.  He explained the mechanism.
+
+"Thanks," she said putting it inside her dress, and walked on.
+
+He strutted after her as far as the gates, and stood there watching.
+She turned into the path behind the cottage, and followed it into the
+woods.  Her idea in making the little temple her starting-point was
+that Don in need of succor, might haunt the paths they had followed
+together.
+
+The sun was looking straight into the little glade through the side
+that opened above the pond, filling the place with a rich yellow light.
+Between the shadows of the pillars a broad beam lay athwart the
+inscription of the gravestone, picking out the curly flourishes of the
+letters that had been sculped with such loving care.  Pen was
+indifferent now to her shadowy brother who lay under the stone.  She
+had not remembered him in many days.  Her thoughts were filled by a man
+of flesh and blood.
+
+"Don!  Don!" she spoke softly, not expecting any answer there, and not
+getting any.
+
+She let herself down the bank to the spring around at the left which
+welled between the roots of a superb white oak that the axe had spared.
+For a tree which guards a spring is sacred even to a timber scout.  Pen
+had hopes of the spring because it was one of the only two places that
+Don knew of where fresh water was to be obtained.  She searched
+carefully about it but was not rewarded by finding any tracks.  She
+made a wider circuit of the spot but could not see that the underbrush
+had been disturbed.
+
+She forced her way slowly through the tangle of thorny creepers and
+thickly-springing sassafras around the pond to the old wood road.  It
+curved away secretly into the gloom; old, undisturbed, overgrown;
+Nature had painted in this ancient blemish.  Years ago the bed of the
+road had been packed so hard that even yet nothing would take root
+there except a mossy growth like fur underfoot.  But at either side
+bushes had taken advantage of the free light to spring up thickly.  Now
+for the most part they met overhead, though there were places where the
+sun splashed through.
+
+Pen walked slowly, pausing often to softly call Don's name.  Nothing
+answered her but bird sounds, and the soft chattering of leaves in the
+high sunlight.  No breath stirred down below.  She made wide detours
+through secondary roads, mere cuts through the woods that only a
+practised eye could follow now.
+
+It was noon when she came out at the edge of the fields.  She sat down
+under the fence to rest, and, from a sense of duty, to eat something.
+Afterwards she struck clear across the rough, neglected, cleared land
+to the woods on the other side, then back again, shaping a course that
+took her through every hollow.  Her experience with sheep had taught
+her the exact lay of the peninsula, how each depression gradually
+deepened into a gully, running off to some branch on one side or the
+other.  But nowhere did she find what she was looking for.
+
+She spent several hours searching the banks of the little stream that
+meandered through the woods to the east of the fields.  That was where
+she had sent him to make his camp that night.  She found the site of
+his camp, but no evidences that he had revisited it.  There were plenty
+of tracks in the mud of the stream, for the searchers had passed and
+re-passed this way, but no voice answered her soft calls.
+
+Finally she struck across the corner of the farthest field, making for
+the path which went down through the woods to the arm of Back creek,
+that path they had followed on another night, a night of happiness.
+She thought of the old skiff drawn up on top of the bank, and had a
+wild hope that he might have launched it and succeeded in making his
+way down the arm and across the main creek to the mainland.  True, the
+skiff was leaky and rotten, but a desperate man might make it serve for
+a short voyage.  She ran the last part of the way.
+
+The skiff was there, just as before!  She dropped down upon it, weary
+of body and despairing of heart, and burst into tears.
+
+"Don!  Don!  Don!" she called for the last time.
+
+A green heron mocked her with its discordant croak.
+
+The sun was low, and there could be no further searching that day.  Pen
+made her heavy way back through the woods, and across the wide field.
+As she walked a merciful apathy descended on her.  She could suffer no
+more.  Imaginary pictures of Don starving in the woods no longer rose
+before her mind's eye.  She was conscious only of a ghastly vacuum
+inside her.  Within it a little thought stirred like a snake: "This
+can't go on!  If I don't hear in two or three days more..."  She never
+completed the thought, but her soul was aware of her intention.
+
+As she was letting down the bars that admitted her to the road, a squad
+of men straggled by, searchers homeward bound.  Pen hung back to let
+them pass.  The business was in the nature of a lark to them; young men
+relieved for the time being from the tedium of their usual lives, they
+were talking loud, laughing, jostling each other in the road.  They
+stared at Pen as unabashed as animals, and Pen busied herself with the
+bars.  Nevertheless she was aware that one of them did not stare at
+her.  She looked at him, and was struck first, by his curiously
+self-conscious air.  She looked afresh, rubbed her eyes so to speak,
+and her heart stood still.
+
+It was Don.
+
+True, his chin was covered with a four days' growth of reddish stubble,
+his bare head was touselled and unbrushed, he walked with exactly the
+same shambling slouch as the others.  But it was Don.  He had passed
+her, but the line of his cheek was enough, and the muscular back under
+the cotton shirt.  She recognized the old garments she had herself
+carried to him.  Far from being the starving wreck she had pictured,
+his cheek was full and ruddy, his whole body notwithstanding the
+shamble he affected, full of spring.  For an instant she thought they
+had taken him.  But that was manifestly ridiculous.  He was skylarking
+with the rest.  His whole bearing was that of a leader amongst them.
+
+Pen leaned against the fence post.  A welter of emotions seemed to
+shatter her; joy, incredulity, terror that her wits might be wandering,
+anger at his careless air of well-being.
+
+Bye and bye she put up the bars mechanically, and started to walk along
+the road with a dazed air.  She could not take in what had happened.
+Dusk was falling.  In a couple of hundred yards a figure stepped out
+from the shadow of the bordering growth.
+
+"Pen!" it whispered.
+
+Her first reaction was to a shaking anger.  She was a little beside
+herself.  Stamping her foot in the road she cried in a soft, strained
+voice: "You Don!  Cutting up like a school-boy in the road!  Is that
+all you have on your mind!"
+
+He fell back a step in surprise.  Then he laughed softly like the boy
+she accused him of being.  "But Pen ... aren't you glad?"
+
+"Yes, laugh! do!" she said bitterly.  "It's nothing to you what I've
+been through these last three days and nights!"
+
+"I told you not to worry," he said sheepishly.
+
+"Told me not to worry!  What do you think I am?"
+
+"There was no way in which I could let you hear from me.  I thought
+you'd understand everything was all right."
+
+"You didn't care!  You didn't care!"
+
+He moved close to her.  "Pen dear, don't quarrel with me!  We have only
+a moment.  Even this is risky.  There are more men coming along the
+road."
+
+She attempted to push him away.  "Don't touch me!  You're heartless and
+unfeeling!"
+
+Even as she said it she began to sob.  She swayed on her feet, and Don
+flung an arm about her.  She clung to him piteously.
+
+"Oh my darling! my darling! ... Thank God!  I have you! ... Don't pay
+any attention to what I say.  I have suffered so.  I was just at the
+end of my string.  If I had not found you soon I ... I ..."
+
+"Hush, dearest!" he murmured, sobered and remorseful.  "You mustn't say
+such things.  I can't bear it! ... It's true I never thought.  I had
+such confidence in your strength."
+
+"I thought you were starving in the woods.  I couldn't eat when I
+thought you had nothing!  I couldn't sleep, seeing you lying there."
+
+"Hush!  Hush!" he soothed her.  "Everything is all right now.  Pull
+yourself together, dearest.  There are stragglers all along the road."
+
+Indeed they could now hear footfalls coming along behind them.  They
+started to walk too, Don straining Pen hard against his side.
+Everybody was traveling the same way.  Gradually Pen's breast quieted
+down.
+
+"What does it mean?" she asked.
+
+"It means I'm one of the searchers for Don Counsell," he said with a
+chuckle.  "Only place they'd never think of looking for me."
+
+She looked at him a little aghast.
+
+"And I've made good in the job, too," he went on.  "I'm considered
+quite a valuable man.  Delehanty has put me in charge of a squad."
+
+"Delehanty!" she gasped.  "Do you mean you have spoken to him?"
+
+"Why not?  He doesn't know Don Counsell by sight.  None of his men do.
+The only one who knows me is Riever, and I take damn good care to keep
+out of his way.  Luckily it's easy.  He doesn't bother with the rough
+necks.  And you can always see him coming a long way off by his gang."
+
+"How did it come about?" she asked.
+
+"Most natural thing in the world.  My way is different from yours.  You
+plan everything out, and I leave it to the inspiration of the moment.
+When I tried to get out by the cellar that night I heard a man down
+there.  They had one out on the kitchen porch, too.  So I took the
+screen out of the window on the other side, and dropped to the ground
+and hid in the shrubbery.  I gradually made my way down to the beach.
+There were some natives camping there, but I was afraid to join them
+then, so I kept under cover until daylight.  In the morning a raft of
+newcomers arrived from all over, and it was a simple matter to mix
+amongst them.  They didn't all know each other."
+
+"But you speak differently from these people," said Pen.
+
+"Oh, I kept my mouth shut as much as possible.  I gave out that I was
+Frank Jones from New Jersey, see?  That accounted for my Northern
+speech.  I said I was off a coasting schooner.  Meanwhile I've been
+practising their lingo, and I can already speak Mar'land at least well
+enough to deceive Delehanty and the other Northerners.  Doggone it
+honey Ah reckon Ah kin _tawk_!  'Deed, can I!  Gemmen, it's the
+_trewth_!"
+
+Pen laughed down his neck.
+
+"Every day that passes makes my position more secure," he said.  "I'm
+becoming known.  At least Frank Jones is.  This crop of saw-tooth is a
+wonderful disguise."
+
+He softly rubbed his chin against her cheek.  Pen liked it.
+
+There came a hail from down the road ahead.  "Hey, Jones!"
+
+They moved apart.  Don answered: "Coming!" To Pen he said breathlessly:
+"How can we meet? ... Oh woman, if you knew how I was hungering for you
+day and night!"
+
+"No!  No!" said Pen.  "Everything's going so well.  We mustn't take
+risks ... But we ought to have some way of communicating."
+
+"Name it quick!"
+
+She considered swiftly.  "... Do you know my fattening-coop under the
+tree back of the kitchen?"
+
+"I can find it."
+
+"There's a little water-pan inside it.  Look under that for a letter."
+
+"All right," he laughed.  "If I'm pinched for swiping chickens you'll
+have to clear me!"
+
+He ran down the road.  Pen followed at a sober pace--still a little
+dazed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PEN'S HAND IS FORCED
+
+It was a justly aggrieved father that Pen found awaiting her in the
+dining-room.
+
+"Half-past eight!" he said.  "Where on earth have you been!"
+
+Pen was quiet and starry-eyed with happiness.  It didn't matter much to
+her what she said.  But she rather wished to avoid a scene.  She
+juggled with the truth a little.
+
+"Mr. Delehanty wanted me to help him with the search."
+
+"Delehanty! ... Wanted you!" he said amazed.  It was too much for him.
+
+"And Mr. Riever," Pen added as an afterthought.
+
+The magic name mollified him a little.  "Hum!  Ha! ... Well, if Riever
+knew ... What suddenly started you off on this tack?"
+
+"I want this business over with!"
+
+"I confess I fail to understand you!" he said severely ... "What help
+could you give them anyway?"
+
+"I know the place so well!"
+
+"Do you mean to say you have been searching the woods ... with all
+these strangers about?"
+
+"I had only to raise my voice to bring a dozen to my aid ... Besides,
+Mr. Riever lent me a revolver."
+
+"Oh! ... Well you might have taken your father into your confidence ...
+Did you find anything?"
+
+"No."
+
+A more perspicacious man might have remarked the little catch of joy
+with which she said it, but never Pendleton.  "The supper is cold," he
+said fretfully.  "Aunt Maria's gone home."
+
+"Never mind," said Pen.  Out of the riches in her breast she could
+spare affection for him, the dear, trying child!  She kissed his bald
+spot.  "I'll make a cup of tea for myself."
+
+"I got the mail this afternoon," he grumbled.  "There's a letter for
+you."
+
+"Eh?" said Pen sharply.
+
+"On your plate.  I never saw the handwriting before."
+
+Pen glided swiftly around the table.  "I never saw it either," she
+said.  Which was perfectly true.  A scrawling, half-formed hand.  The
+post-mark "New York" told her all that she needed to know.
+
+She thrust it carelessly in her belt and went out into the kitchen.
+Pendleton looked affronted.  He was terribly curious.  Pen lit the oil
+stove and put the kettle on.  Then she read her letter.
+
+
+"Dear Miss:
+
+I'm not much at writing.  Please excuse mistakes.  Well Miss Broome I
+guess you were right, all right.  Everything bears out what you said.
+I and the fellows have made a good beginning, but we haven't cinched it
+yet by a good deal.  Of course in a job like this you got to be
+absolutely bomb-proof before you put yourself under fire.  I guess you
+get me.  Just at present we're stalled for the lack of coin.  I've
+raised every nickel I could amongst the fellows and it's all gone
+flooey.  And not a job stirring.  We got to have five hundred quick.  A
+thousand would be better.  Bring it up yourself.  We got to have
+somebody to stop at a certain swell joint.  None of us was able to get
+by with it.  For God's sake get the money, if you have to purloin your
+old man's sock.  Everything depends on your turning up with it the next
+day or so.  No need for me to sign this."
+
+
+A few minutes later Pendleton entered the kitchen to find Pen leaning
+against the table in a brown study, the open letter in her hand.  The
+kettle was boiling unheeded.
+
+"Who's your letter from?" he asked.
+
+"Oh ... that!" said Pen with a laugh.  She was obliged to extemporize
+quickly.  "Such an odd thing!  Do you remember the little foundling
+that used to work for the Snellings on the Island?  Something has led
+the child to write to me."
+
+"Let's see," he said, holding out his hand.
+
+"I can't, Dad.  The poor little thing is telling me her troubles."
+
+"Humph!" snorted Pendleton, and passed on out of doors.
+
+Pen carried her supper into the dining-room.  She sat, abstractedly
+stirring her cup, and munching a sandwich, while the same phrase ran
+around and around in her head.  "Got to have five hundred, a thousand
+would be better!"  Blanche might almost as well have asked her for a
+million, she thought sighing.  Bye and bye Pendleton having finished
+his chores, came in again.
+
+"Sit down a minute, Dad," she said.  "I want to talk to you."
+
+Anticipating something unpleasant, he dropped into a chair grumbling.
+
+"This business has about finished me up," said Pen.  "I must get away
+for awhile."
+
+"You're looking particularly well to me," he said.
+
+She refused to be drawn off.
+
+"I don't know what to make of you," he went on crossly.  "A while ago
+you were all for helping in the search."
+
+"I hoped to end it," said Pen.  "But I was unsuccessful."
+
+Pendleton scowled sulkily at the table.  "You know what I want you to
+do," he muttered.
+
+"That can wait," said Pen cautiously.
+
+"You may not get the chance, later."
+
+"I don't know that I have the chance now."
+
+"Oh, let's talk plainly!" Pendleton burst out, but still not meeting
+her eye.  "This is no time for false delicacy.  Anybody could see that
+Riever wants you.  He's given me to understand in the broadest way that
+you have only to say the word.  Even after the extraordinary way you
+have acted.  You still have a chance.  What makes you hold back?
+You've got to marry somebody.  Men are all much the same.  Marriage is
+no bed of roses at the best! ... Am I not your father?  Would I be
+advising you to anything that wasn't for your good?  It's a wonderful
+chance! a wonderful chance, I tell you! ... And you talk about going
+away!"  The little man was almost ready to weep.
+
+Pen schooled herself to patience.  "If Mr. Riever is really in earnest
+my going away will not make any difference ... It's said to be a very
+good move," she added slyly.
+
+"Not where a man like Riever is concerned!" cried Pendleton.  "He's
+accustomed to be courted, to be deferred to.  He'd never get over such
+an affront.  He'd pull up anchor and sail away never to return!"
+
+Pen thought: "Ah, if he would!"
+
+"What was in that letter you got?" demanded Pendleton.  "Has that got
+anything to do with it?"
+
+Pen was startled.  She saw, however, that it was merely a hit in the
+dark.  He had no real suspicion.  The best way was to ignore his
+question as unworthy of being answered.  "Won't you give me the money?"
+she said.
+
+"Where am I going to get it."
+
+Pen was significantly silent.
+
+"A while ago you would not touch that money with a poker!" he burst out.
+
+"It is not easy to ask for it," she murmured.
+
+"How much do you want?"
+
+"Five hundred dollars!" said Pen with her heart in her mouth.
+
+"Five hundred dollars!" he stormed.  "Five hundred dollars!  Why you
+could go to your Cousin Laura Lee's and back for twenty!"
+
+"Wherever I went I would need clothes," said Pen.
+
+"I offered you money for clothes, and you scorned it!"
+
+"I'm sorry now.  I have thought better of it."
+
+"Oh, you have, have you?  Well, permit me to remind you that the
+clothes were to wear here, and not to go away in!"  He started out of
+the room blustering noisily to cover his retreat.  "Five hundred
+dollars!  To ruin your chances!  Never heard of such folly!  Never
+speak to me of this again!  Five hundred dollars!"
+
+He kept on talking right up-stairs.  Pen remained sitting at the table
+looking at her empty hands.
+
+She sat thinking and thinking; stirring the tea which had long ago
+turned cold.  The only possible way she had of raising money was
+through the sale of her sheep.  She had considered that once before.
+Her father would try to prevent her of course, but she might drive them
+up the Neck road at night and put them on the steamboat from one of the
+Bay wharves.  But Delehanty's men were watching the road at a dozen
+points.
+
+In her perplexity Pen felt a great longing to consult with Don.  Two
+heads were better than one, she told herself.  Perhaps the truth was
+she just wanted to be with him.  She was thankful she had made an
+arrangement to communicate.  In the ordinary course he could hardly
+expect a letter from her until the next day, but thinking of his boyish
+eagerness it seemed quite possible that he might come back that night
+on the chance of hearing from her.  At any rate it was worth trying.
+
+She got a scrap of paper and a pencil, and wrote four lines:
+
+"I must see you.  I'll put on an old dress and a sun-bonnet and walk on
+the beach near the lighthouse at eleven.  If you don't get this
+to-night I'll come to-morrow night."
+
+Pen put this into the agreed place, and returned to the house,
+wondering how she would put in the hour and a half that remained before
+eleven.  She determined to watch to see whether he came for the note.
+So she went up-stairs rather noisily, and came down again very quietly,
+carrying with her what she needed for her disguise.
+
+She took up her position on a chair in the dark kitchen, placed against
+the wall in such a way that she could look obliquely through the window
+in the direction of her chicken coop.  The moon was not up yet, and it
+was pitch dark under the tree.  She could see nothing, but she was sure
+no one could visit the spot without her being aware of it.
+
+And after all she dozed.  She had had little enough sleep of late, and
+now that the most pressing weight was lifted from her breast, the night
+laid a finger on her eyelids without her being aware of it.  The
+katydids, the crickets, the distant murmur of the waves on the Bay
+shore gradually undermined wakefulness.  Her head swayed against the
+wall.
+
+She awakened, scarcely knowing she had slept.  Somebody was outside.
+She was electrically conscious of it, though for a moment she could
+hear nothing.  Then a soft, masculine chuckle came out of the dark.
+There was more than one evidently, for men do not as a rule chuckle
+when alone.  A voice whispered.
+
+"Doggone, if it ain't a coop, fellas!  What say to a nice fat pullet
+for breakfast?"
+
+It suddenly came to her this was Don's voice, with his exaggerated
+Maryland drawl.  Her heart beat fast.
+
+Another voice answered: "Watch yourself, Jones.  Those damn birds 'll
+raise the dead if you lay hand to them!"
+
+"On'y one squawk before I get her neck wrung," laughed Don.  "I got the
+lay of the land.  That white-washed fence yonder marks the garden.  Run
+down the rows to the next fence and you're safe!"
+
+A silence followed.  Pen, straining her ears heard, or imagined that
+she heard the latch softly raised, the door opened, and the little pan
+softly moved inside.  Then Don's voice again:
+
+"By Golly!  It's empty!"
+
+The words were spoken in the conventional tones of disappointment but
+Pen and none but Pen could hear the thrilling little lift in his voice.
+She was assured that the note was tight clasped in his hands.  The
+voices moved away.
+
+Pen cautiously consulted her watch.  It was half-past ten.  She must
+start at once in order to keep her appointment, for she must take a
+roundabout and difficult way.  Pendleton's snores were resounding
+through the house, and in the back hall where the light could not
+betray her out-of-doors, she lit a little lamp and arrayed herself.
+She had a black cotton servant's dress that had been designed to fit a
+more ample figure than hers.  She put it on and stuffed it out with old
+cotton until her own shape was altered beyond recognition.  Drawing her
+hair straight back from her face, she twisted it into a tight knot
+behind, and pulled the sunbonnet over her head.  For the dark it was a
+sufficiently effective disguise.
+
+It was still very dark out of doors.  Slipping out of the back door,
+she made her way to the old paddock behind the house grounds, and
+gaining the road from here, climbed a fence on the other side and
+struck across the little triangular field for the woods.  It was the
+way she had gone once before to meet Don.  Forcing her way through the
+undergrowth she gained her own path and so reached the little temple.
+From this point she struck out a line that would bring her out on the
+Bay shore.  The sound of the waves guided her.  When she had gone a
+little way she began to catch glimpses of the Broome's Point light
+between the tree trunks, and that gave her an exact course.
+
+But this part of the woods was densely grown up, and it was hard, slow
+going.  She had to feel her way through the tangle, and the thorns
+scratched her hands and tore her dress.  She put her foot into
+unsuspected holes and came down heavily.  It was only a couple of
+hundred yards, but she could progress but a foot at a time.  It seemed
+as if an age passed before she slid down the steep bank and gained the
+sand.  From around the point she heard six bells sounded melodiously
+aboard the _Alexandra_, and broke into a run.  The tide was falling,
+and there was firm hard footing along the water's edge.
+
+The lighthouse stood on its spidery stilts only a hundred feet or so
+off the beach.  As she came close Pen could make out old Weems Locket
+the keeper, standing on the little gallery that encircled his octagonal
+house, with a companion.  She slowed down.  The two were leaning on the
+rail looking out across the Bay, smoking cigars.  Even if they had
+looked in her direction they could scarcely have seen her, for her
+black dress was lost against the bushes that bordered the sand.  There
+was a fresh breeze off the water that swallowed sounds.  The first
+narrow edge of a smoky, orange moon was rising out of the Bay.
+
+Pen breathed more freely after rounding the point.  The old wharf was
+now about a quarter of a mile in front of her.  The natives were camped
+on the beach on both sides of the wharf, and as she approached Pen
+could see the fires burning low in front of the tents, but no figures
+stirring.  On board the _Alexandra_ lights still shone from the
+deckhouse windows.
+
+Pen, not daring to go close to the tents, came to a stand about a
+furlong off.  There was no sign of Don.  But presently she heard
+somebody coming from the other direction, the way she had herself come,
+someone softly whistling a tune.  Thinking she must have passed him
+somehow, she turned eagerly.  On this side of the point the rising moon
+was hidden behind the intervening high ground.  A figure emerged out of
+the murk and Pen instantly perceived that it was not Don.  It was too
+late to escape then.
+
+"A skirt!" exclaimed a rough, young voice, surprised.  "What are you
+doing out so late, sister?"  He spread out his arms to bar her way.
+
+"Let me by!" murmured Pen.
+
+"Wait a minute!  Wait a minute!  Let's have a squint at you."
+
+He lit a match with his thumb-nail.  Quick as thought Pen blew out the
+flame.  The young fellow laughed.  Pen tried to dart by him.  He flung
+out an arm and gathered her in.  She struggled in silent desperation.
+
+"Young and souple as willow, I swear," laughed the man.  "What you got
+so much clothes on for? ... Gee! you smell as sweet as honeysuck'!"
+
+Pen beat his face with her clenched fists.  He simply lowered his head
+laughing, and clung to her.  She had a sickening feeling of
+helplessness, and she dared not call for help.  It was all over in half
+a minute.  She heard running footsteps from the direction of the camp,
+and felt herself suddenly released.
+
+The newcomer was Don.  "What's this?" he cried with an oath that
+startled Pen--and charmed her.
+
+"Hell, I didn't know it was your propitty, Jones," the other man said
+sullenly.
+
+"Damn you...!"
+
+Pen apprehended a blow about to be given, and as in a flash, the
+ghastly consequences of a fight there, were revealed to her.  She flung
+her arms around Don, and clung to him without speaking.  He understood.
+He conquered his rage with a groan.
+
+"Well ... get out!" he said thickly.
+
+The other man melted away into the dark.
+
+Pen and Don clung to each other.  Of the two the man was the more
+shaken.  Moments passed before he could speak.  Then:
+
+"Oh my girl! my girl!"
+
+"It is nothing," Pen said.  "I am not made of glass."
+
+"My fault because I was late," he groaned.  "I couldn't get rid of
+those fellows I was with."
+
+"I am safe," Pen said.  "Forget about it.  I have something to tell
+you.  There is little time."
+
+They started to walk slowly away from the direction of the camp.  Pen
+repeated Blanche Paglar's letter to him word for word.  It arrested his
+attention, and he quieted down.  When they found themselves drawing too
+near the lighthouse, they turned and came slowly back, Don straining
+Pen against his side.
+
+When she had described her problem, Don said instantly: "There's just
+one thing to do.  You must give me up to Riever and collect the reward."
+
+Pen's breast contracted sharply.  She bitterly blamed herself.  Why had
+she not foreseen that this was what he would say.  She couldn't answer.
+
+"How about it?" he asked.
+
+"I couldn't!" she murmured.
+
+"But if it's the best thing to do?"
+
+"I simply couldn't!"
+
+"Listen, dearest, we must think this thing clean through to the end.
+These people in New York seem to have started something.  Well, that
+being so, this seems to me as good an opportunity as any, for me to
+come out and put up my fight."
+
+"I must find out first how much they've learned."
+
+"She says it is not complete.  But they've started something.  They
+seem to be on the level with us.  We must back them up before the trail
+grows cold."
+
+"I could find another way of raising the money."
+
+"I'd rather use Riever's money," he said dryly.  "I've got to stand
+trial anyhow.  It will take a whole lot of money, and I don't see any
+other way of raising it.  There'd be a sort of poetic justice in making
+Riever pay the expenses of my trial.  But we must act quickly.  He's
+bound to find out that you and I are working together.  Then he'd never
+pay you the reward."
+
+"How could I bring myself to do such a thing!"
+
+"Wait a minute!  Suppose we do nothing, what will happen?  Oh, I'm in
+no particular danger now.  In a few days they'll get sick of this
+search and give it up.  I can see signs of it coming.  Well, I can go
+back to the Eastern shore with the fellows I'm chumming with and get
+clean away.  I've a new identity all established.  But what then?  What
+sort of a life would I have?  I'd be a sort of wandering Jew without a
+friend in the world, except you, and I wouldn't dare communicate with
+you.  I'd be one of the miserable floaters that have to do the dirtiest
+work for the least pay.  God! when you are really on the outs of things
+you're up against it!  You're at the bottom of a pit with smooth walls!"
+
+"Wherever you were I would be," she whispered.
+
+"I wouldn't take you!" he said simply.  "Not that!  Not unless we could
+hold our heads up."
+
+"How could I do it?" murmured poor Pen.  "How could I make my lips
+shape the words?"
+
+"But if it was I you were doing it for, dearest...?"
+
+Slowly pacing up and down cheek to cheek, they endlessly and lovingly
+disputed the question without being able to come to a conclusion.  In
+their deep preoccupation they became careless.  The slab-sided moon
+rose over the high bank, and shone upon them full, and they gave no
+heed.
+
+The edge of the beach was bordered with the brittle woody bushes that
+the natives call water-weed.  Pen and Don had paused in their pacing,
+and were standing looking into each other's faces with their clasped
+hands between them.  Suddenly from behind a clump of bushes immediately
+alongside them rose the figure of a man.  He was silhouetted against
+the moon with a significant raised arm.
+
+"Hands up, Counsell!  I got you covered!"
+
+Don acted like a lightning flash.  With a thrust out of his arms he
+sent Pen reeling backwards.  She fell in the sand.  At the same instant
+Don dived low through the bushes and caught the other man around the
+legs.  He measured his length in the sand.  It was so quick that he did
+not even fire.  The pistol flew out of his hand.  Pen following a blind
+instinct, scrambled on hands and knees and secured it.
+
+Don had flung himself on the other man, and they were struggling
+furiously and silently in the sand.  Don kept on top.  When Pen's eyes
+were able to distinguish between them, she saw that Don was planted on
+the other man's chest, holding one of his arms down with one hand, and
+pressing his other hand over the man's mouth.  With his free hand the
+man struck ineffectually up at Don's body, or tried in vain to pull
+away the hand that covered his mouth.  His legs were thrashing wildly.
+
+"Something to gag him with," panted Don.
+
+Pen tore off her sun-bonnet and rolling it up with the strings out
+handed it over.  She sat on the man's right arm, when Don was obliged
+to release it.  Somehow Don managed to force the twisted roll of cotton
+between his teeth, and with Pen's aid, passed the strings under his
+head and tied the gag with the knots in front.  Sepulchral groans
+issued from beneath it.
+
+"Something to tie his hands and feet!" whispered Don.
+
+Pen, anticipating it, already had her apron off.  She managed to tear
+off the band, which with the strings attached, made a useful lashing.
+Between the two of them they got the struggling man turned over, and
+finally got his wrists tied behind him.  With the rest of the apron
+they bound his ankles together.  Don rolled his coat around the man's
+head to stifle his groans, and they stood up and looked anxiously up
+and down the beach.  They were about half way between the lighthouse
+and the tents.  Nothing stirred in either direction.
+
+Don looked down at the helpless figure.  "Who do you suppose it is?" he
+asked.
+
+"Keesing, one of the detectives," said Pen.  "I recognized his voice.
+He must have followed me down here ... But I don't see how he could."
+
+Don shook his head.  "More likely Pardoe--the man you ran into here,
+told him something and he came snooping around just on a chance.  I
+gave myself away with my own talk."
+
+They were silent for a moment.  Both were thinking of the same thing.
+
+Don said: "Well ... I guess the die is cast for us now."
+
+Pen clasped her hands.  "Oh, Don!"
+
+"You've got to march me out on board the yacht quick and give me up."
+
+"Oh, Don!"
+
+"This fellow will soon wriggle loose.  Then the fat will be in the
+fire.  You must see there's no other way."
+
+She nodded despairingly.
+
+"Come on," said Don.  "... I guess Riever won't mind being roused up
+for such a purpose," he added grimly.  "Bring the fellow's gun with
+you."
+
+They set off down the beach.
+
+"This man will tell Riever that I didn't intend to bring you in," said
+Pen.
+
+"We'll have to cook up some yarn ... Tell Riever you were bringing me
+in when this fellow Keesing tried to horn in on the reward."
+
+There was no sound of waking life about the tents.  On the beach in
+front, all sorts and sizes of skiffs were drawn up.  They chose the
+first one that had oars lying in it.  The falling tide had left it high
+and dry, and it required a strenuous effort on Don's part to launch it.
+At the scraping of the bottom on the sand, a voice issued out of the
+nearest tent:
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+A lean and disheveled shadow appeared in the tent opening.
+
+"It's Jones," said Don lightly.  "Just want to take a lady for a little
+row."
+
+"Oh all right, Jones.  Go as far as you like."
+
+"I'm popular with the gang," murmured Don dryly.
+
+He only had three hundred yards to row to the yacht.  It was one thing
+to decide resolutely to give himself up, and another thing to put it
+into practice.  He took half a dozen strokes energetically, and then
+loafed at the oars, gazing hungrily at Pen.
+
+Pen suddenly conscious of the absurd figure she must be making, put up
+her hands and unpinning her hair, shook it about her shoulders.  Don
+drew in his oars, and creeping aft caught up the dark tide and pressed
+it to his lips.
+
+"Oh, why do you do that now?" he groaned.  "You are so beautiful that
+way?"
+
+Pen caught his head against her breast.  "How can I?  How can I?  How
+can I?" she murmured.
+
+Don with a sigh went back to his oars.
+
+Pen with a twist or two, put up her hair in more becoming fashion.  She
+began to pull out the various lengths of cotton with which she had
+stuffed out her bodice, and dropped them overboard.  Don, the
+irrepressible, began to laugh shakily.  Pen gasped, and laughed too.
+They looked at each other and laughed softly until they felt weak.
+
+"Is that all?" asked Don at last.
+
+Pen fishing around inside her dress nodded.
+
+"Well, I'm relieved," he said.
+
+"Oh, but it's dreadful to laugh now," Pen murmured remorsefully.
+
+"It's the only thing to do," said Don simply.
+
+He was sober enough when they touched the side of the yacht.  He made
+the skiff's painter fast to the grating at the foot of the ladder, and
+stepping out, drew Pen up beside him.
+
+"Kiss me," he whispered.  "Maybe it'll be the last...!"
+
+A murmur of pain was forced from Pen's breast.
+
+"I mean for a good while," he hastily added.
+
+They clung together.  His face was wet from hers.
+
+The sound of a footfall on the deck overhead caused them to draw apart
+quickly.
+
+"Take the gun in your hand," Don whispered.
+
+They went up the ladder, Don in advance.  On the deck an astonished
+watchman faced them.
+
+"What do you want?" he demanded.
+
+"I am Miss Broome," said Pen.  "I want to see Mr. Riever."
+
+"He's turned in, Miss."
+
+In order to avoid frightening him unduly, Pen kept the pistol hidden in
+a fold of her skirt.  "He must be awakened," she said.  "It is
+important."
+
+The watchman, like everybody else on board the yacht, had gathered from
+watching his master that Pen was a person to be propitiated.  "I'll
+tell him," he said, and disappeared within the deckhouse.
+
+Pen and Don left alone on deck, leaned over the rail and pressing their
+shoulders together, gazed down at the black water etched with
+phosphorescence where the little waves lapped against the vessel's side
+and rolled back again.
+
+"I love you," Don whispered.  "Whatever happens, you have made life to
+me worth living."
+
+Pen caught her breath.  "Ah, don't speak," she murmured.  "Or I sha'n't
+... be able to go through with it."
+
+They groped for each other's hands.
+
+They had not to wait long.  They saw Riever coming through the lighted
+deck saloon before he could see them.  The watchman accompanied him,
+and another man, a sort of valet-bodyguard.  Riever was wearing a
+gorgeous orange and blue flowered dressing-gown.  His face looked
+puffier than by day, but his thin hair was carefully brushed.  He had
+an expression of oddly strained eagerness.
+
+As they came through the door, one of the men turned a switch and the
+deck was flooded with light.  Riever's sharpened gaze flew first to
+Pen's face, and from Pen to Don.  For a fraction of a second he did not
+recognize him, but Don grinned, and said coolly:
+
+"Hello, Ernest!"
+
+Then he knew.  His face became convulsed.  "Counsell!" he cried in a
+high strained voice.  He whirled on the watchman.  "Blow your whistle!
+Rouse the ship!"
+
+The shrill, wailing sound pierced the night.
+
+Half beside himself Riever cried to Don: "You fox!  I've run you to
+earth at last!"
+
+"You didn't," said Don, smiling at him steadily.
+
+"Well, you're caught!  You've seen the last of the sun.  You're done
+for!"
+
+Doors opened and slammed throughout the yacht.  Feet came running.
+Among the first to arrive was the skipper from his quarters up forward,
+struggling into his coat as he ran.  Pen looked on at it all, strangely
+detached.  She felt as if she were watching the actors in the scene,
+including herself, from some point outside her body.
+
+To each new arrival Riever cried: "We've got Counsell!"  It was almost
+a scream.  "There he is!  Secure him!  Put him in the strong room
+forward of the staterooms.  Have an armed guard at the door day and
+night.  If he resists put him in irons!"
+
+The skipper and another clapped hands on Don's shoulders.
+
+Don said: "Take your hands off me, and I'll go with you quietly."
+
+Surrounded by his creatures, Riever, his face swollen and flaming,
+walked up close to Don and all but spat on him.  He had lost all
+control of himself.  He had forgotten Pen's presence.  "You grinning
+blackguard!" he cried.  "Grin while you can!  You won't be grinning
+when they lead you out to the chair!  And I'll be there to see it!"
+
+Pen turned away her face.  She could not be angry at the little man; he
+was beneath it.  She was sickened with disgust.  As for Don, he merely
+drew down the corners of his lips aggravatingly, and drawled:
+
+"Be yourself!  Be yourself, Ernest!  You're all wet!"
+
+A titter was heard on the outside of the circle.
+
+"Take him away!" Riever cried furiously.
+
+Most of the men accompanied the skipper and his prisoner along the deck
+to the forward companionway.  A steward or two was left hanging about
+the after deck, and a pretty, frightened stewardess, clutching a pink
+kimono about her.
+
+"Get away!  Get away--all of you!" yelled Riever waving his arms.
+
+When they were left alone on deck Riever went to Pen where she stood on
+the same spot in the same position, the pistol hanging limply down.  He
+said thickly:
+
+"My darling!  Now I know you're mine!"
+
+A sharp little cry escaped Pen.  She had overlooked this possibility.
+Instinctively her hands went up between them.  She did not point the
+gun at him, but its mere presence in her hand was sufficient to bring
+him to a stand.  She backed slowly to the rail.  When she hit against
+it, she glanced down over her shoulder at the dark water with a curious
+lightening of the horror in her face.
+
+That glance overboard was not lost on Riever.  He looked at her,
+scowling and pulling at his lip.  Lest he should hear what would be
+intolerable to his self-love, he made haste to furnish reasons for her
+conduct.
+
+"Of course ... you're all upset!" he muttered.  "It's natural after
+such a strain ... I understand..."
+
+Pen was suddenly overcome by weakness.  The gun clattered to the deck.
+She staggered to the nearest deck-chair and sank into it.
+
+Riever called sharply: "Carter!"
+
+The pink-clad stewardess appeared miraculously in the cabin doorway.
+
+"Miss Broome is faint," said Riever.  "Get smelling-salts!"
+
+Pen wanted to keep the girl out on deck.  "Wait!" she said weakly.
+"I'm not going to faint.  I want nothing ... I only want to go home."
+
+Riever bent over her.  She closed her eyes to avoid seeing him.  "Of
+course that's what you want," he murmured.  "I'll take you just as
+quick as I can dress."
+
+Pen did not protest, because by this time she had regained sufficient
+self-possession to realize that, until this man had fulfilled his
+promise to her, she must not rebuff him too much, though she did indeed
+almost faint with horror at his nearness.
+
+As he left the deck he ordered the girl to stay with Pen.  The girl
+came sidling towards her with an emotion in her face that she could not
+control.  Her eyes were both hard and soft on Pen.  In that look Pen
+saw as clearly as if it had been written on the girl that she was
+Riever's mistress, but at that moment the discovery caused her no
+feeling.
+
+"Can I get you anything, Miss?" the girl asked in a purring tone.
+
+"No thank you," said Pen.  "You needn't wait."
+
+She retreated to the deck saloon, where she stood hovering in the
+doorway, stealing glances at Pen that were diffident, wistful and
+sneering.
+
+Riever came back fully dressed, and attended by various servitors.  The
+speed-boat was brought around to the gangway ladder, and Pen handed in.
+She had picked up the gun and concealed it within her dress.
+
+"That skiff belongs to one of the men in the tents," she said pointing.
+
+A sailor was told off to row it ashore.
+
+They landed on the old wharf, and Riever led her up the hill.  To Pen's
+relief they were followed a hundred feet or so behind, by a body-guard.
+Riever had his hand under her elbow.  She would not allow herself to
+object to that, though her flesh crawled at his touch.
+
+"You feel better now?" he murmured.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Tell me how it came about."
+
+She had her story ready for him.  She cut it as cunningly to the
+pattern of truth as she could.  "I searched to-day in all the places I
+knew of, but I found no trace of him.  On my way home along the road
+this evening I saw him returning amongst the other searchers.  It seems
+he joined the searchers some days ago.  That's why you couldn't find
+him."
+
+"What devilish cunning!" cried Riever.
+
+"It was growing dark," Pen went on.  "He dropped behind the men he was
+with, and we had some talk.  We couldn't say much there amongst all
+those people--I wasn't going to let _them_ know, so I made an
+appointment with him to meet me on the beach at eleven, when I supposed
+everything would have quieted down.  He suspected nothing."
+
+"Oh, he thinks he's irresistible!" sneered Riever.  "... It was
+dangerous.  You should have arranged to have men concealed there."
+
+"I wanted to deliver him up to you myself as I said I would."
+
+"You are wonderful!" murmured Riever.
+
+"I went armed," said Pen.  "And I forced him to come with me.  That's
+all."
+
+Riever carried her hand to his lips.  "You are a woman in a thousand!"
+he cried.  "I never heard of such pluck!"
+
+Pen pulled her hand away.  "Please!  _Please_!" she murmured.  "I can't
+stand it! ... Not to-night!"
+
+He eagerly snatched at the little promise she held out.  "Ah, I won't
+press you," he said amorously.  "I know how you must be feeling.
+Tender-hearted woman and all that.  Cuts you all up to have to give up
+a man to justice.  But believe me, he's a bad one through and through.
+You've done a service to all decent people.  You'll soon see that
+yourself."
+
+Pen sighed with relief, that he had so ready an explanation of her
+agitation.  "There's something else I must tell you," she went on.  "As
+I was bringing Counsell along the beach a man interfered between us.  I
+think it was one of the detectives.  I suppose he wanted to share in
+the reward.  Anyhow the two men fought on the beach.  I let them fight
+it out.  I helped Counsell because he was my prisoner.  And he got the
+best of the other man and tied him up.  I suppose he's lying there yet.
+Half way between the wharf and the lighthouse.  As soon as it was over
+I forced Counsell to come along with me just the same as before."
+
+Riever laughed loudly.  "What a woman you are!" he cried.  "You've
+earned that reward ten times over!  Don't you worry.  Nobody else shall
+touch a cent of it!"
+
+That clear-eyed little familiar inside Pen whispered to her: "This is
+all very well, but as soon as he has time to think it over, he'll begin
+to see the holes in your story.  You must get the money out of him
+to-night if you can."
+
+But how could she bring herself to speak of it?
+
+They lingered at the door of the big house.  The body-guard was waiting
+off in the drive with his back discreetly turned.  Riever took enormous
+encouragement from the fact that Pen did not try to hurry away from him.
+
+"What are your plans?" she murmured.
+
+"We'll weigh anchor early to-morrow," Riever said, "and steam to
+Annapolis where I will obtain the necessary extradition papers.  Then
+I'll have Counsell sent North by train.  Before nightfall to-morrow
+he'll be lodged safe in the Tombs."
+
+"The Tombs?"
+
+"The New York City prison."
+
+Pen blushed crimson in the dark but doggedly forced herself to bring
+out the words: "But ... how about ... what you promised me..."
+
+Riever laughed.  It had an unpleasant ring, though he probably meant it
+good-naturedly enough.  "What a funny girl you are!  Anxious about your
+thirty pieces of silver, eh?  Don't worry!  I'll see you in the morning
+before I go."
+
+Pen was obliged to let it go at that, though it was with a sickening
+anxiety.
+
+Riever's voice thickened again.  "You've quieted down now," he
+murmured.  "You're not going to let me go like this..."
+
+Pen's hands went up again, but he caught her roughly to him.  He could
+not reach her face.  He pressed a burning kiss on her neck.  Pen tore
+herself away, and ran shudderingly to her room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE _ALEXANDRA_ SAILS AWAY
+
+Next morning Pen was late, for her, in getting down-stairs, and her
+father was before her.  He had already been out-of-doors and had heard
+the startling news.  He was pale with excitement, and his expression
+presented a comical mixture of elation and outraged parental authority.
+
+"What is this?" he cried.  "Counsell is caught?  And caught by you!"
+
+"That pleases you, doesn't it?" said Pen, in a quiet way very
+aggravating to an excited man.
+
+"Pleases me?" he cried.  "My daughter starting out at night on such an
+errand!  Wandering around the woods with a gun!  Pleases me!"  He ended
+on a more human note.  "You might have told me when you came in,
+instead of letting me learn it from strangers!"
+
+"I was all in," said Pen simply.  "I couldn't face the added excitement
+even of telling you."
+
+"Um!  Humph!  Ha!" he snorted.  "What will become of your reputation?"
+
+"Mr. Riever didn't seemed to think it had suffered," Pen murmured slyly.
+
+"Ha! ... Well, of course he wouldn't say so! ... I sha'n't be able to
+sleep quietly for thinking what _might_ have happened!"
+
+Pen saw that the indignant parent only wanted to put himself on record,
+and that underneath the man was delighted.  She went ahead and gave him
+his breakfast.  He ate it in a charming humor.
+
+Afterwards she went about her household chores waiting for Riever, sick
+with anxiety.  Suppose he didn't come?  Suppose even then, the yacht
+was getting ready to sail?  She couldn't go out to see.  She simply
+could not humiliate her pride to the extent of going down to the wharf
+to look for her money.
+
+After all Riever did come, and early, too.  It still lacked a few
+minutes of nine.  But he met Pendleton outside, who brought him in, and
+the two men were closeted in the front drawing-room for awhile.  Pen
+felt by instinct that this interview boded her no good.  Afterwards her
+father came to her in the kitchen saying:
+
+"Mr. Riever wants to say good-by to you."
+
+He avoided Pen's eye as he said it, and there were complacent little
+lines about the corners of his mouth.  "Riever has given him more
+money!" Pen thought with sinking heart.
+
+Pendleton did not accompany her back to the drawing-room.  Riever was
+waiting for her, carefully dressed in his admirable, square-cut
+yachting suit.  He was brisk, and inclined to be effusive, signs in
+Pen's eyes that he was secretly uneasy.  But perhaps that was natural.
+His eyes were as devoid of expression as an animal's; she could not
+guess of what he was thinking; his words came merely from his lips.
+
+"How are you?" he asked solicitously.  "Ah, pale, I see!  Not much
+sleep perhaps?  Well thank God! this nasty business is about over."
+
+Pen did not feel that this required any answer.  She waited.
+
+"I said I'd come to see you before I set sail this morning," Riever
+went on briskly--and then came to a somewhat lame pause.
+
+Pen waited in an anxiety that was like a physical pain for him to
+produce a check-book or a bundle of notes.  But he made no such move.
+There was an awkward silence.  Finally he said as if at random:
+
+"By the way do you know what became of Keesing's revolver?  He's making
+a fuss about it."
+
+"I haven't it," said Pen coolly.
+
+"He said you took it from him," Riever said with a light laugh--but his
+eyes were tormented.
+
+"He is mistaken," said Pen.  "When he fell it flew out of his hand.  I
+don't know what became of it."
+
+"He said you carried it away in your hand."
+
+"That was the pistol you gave me in the morning ... You saw it," she
+added, feeling pretty sure that Riever had been in no condition to
+distinguish one pistol from another.
+
+"Why of course!" he said.  "It's absurd."  But there was no real
+conviction in his tones.
+
+"If you'll wait a moment I'll get it for you," said Pen.
+
+"Please don't bother," he said.  "Keep it as a souvenir."
+
+There was another silence.  Pen saw that he dared not accuse her
+openly.  The matter _had_ to be threshed out to a conclusion, so she
+grasped her nettle firmly.
+
+"What else did Mr. Keesing tell you?" she asked scornfully.
+
+Riever's attempt to carry it off lightly was painful to see.  "Oh, I
+don't take any stock in it," he said with his laugh.
+
+"But I ought to know, shouldn't I?"
+
+Riever laughed excessively.  "Said you had no intention of giving him
+up until he surprised you together.  Said you were just walking up and
+down the beach talking."  His eyes were darting ugly, pained glances at
+her.
+
+Pen laughed too.  "In the full moonlight!" she exclaimed.  She was
+secretly relieved.  If Keesing had overheard their talk he would of
+course have repeated it.
+
+"I told you there was nothing in it," said Riever.
+
+"If I was ...  friendly with him, do you think I'm the sort of person
+to give him up?" demanded Pen.
+
+"Certainly not ... But Keesing said after he had recognized Counsell,
+there was nothing else for you to do."
+
+"If I'd wanted to save the other man I could have shot Keesing," said
+Pen boldly.
+
+Riever stared.  "Well ... I believe you are capable of it," he
+muttered.  That at least was honest.
+
+Pen followed up her advantage quickly.  "Obviously a crude attempt to
+get the reward for himself," she said.
+
+"That's what I thought ... But Keesing clearly understood that there
+was nothing in it for him, anyway.  He didn't bring the man in."
+
+"Then it was just spite," said Pen.
+
+"No doubt," said Riever.
+
+Pen's heart sank.  She was making no progress whatever.  He would agree
+with everything she said, and act according to his own secret motives.
+She was determined to drag these out into the light.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she asked bluntly.
+
+"Why, nothing!" he said with an air of surprise.
+
+"I mean about the money," said Pen firmly.
+
+He averted his head.  "What do you want so much money for?" he muttered.
+
+"What does anybody want money for?" said Pen.  "Thousands of things!"
+
+He came towards her eagerly.  "Tell me what they are," he stuttered.
+"Anything ... anything money will buy!  You have only to name it!"
+
+"I can't take gifts from you," said Pen coldly.  "I've earned this
+money, haven't I?  You promised it."
+
+"I don't go back on my promises," he muttered.
+
+"Well then?"
+
+"But just at the moment I haven't it by me."
+
+Pen thought: "It's all over!"  And tasted despair.
+
+He went on more glibly: "One's money gets all tied up you know.  And
+I've been under heavy expenses.  Of course I can arrange it when I get
+back to town.  I'll bring it to you myself.  Just as soon as I can get
+this ugly business off my hands.  It won't take long.  Popular opinion
+demands that the man be tried speedily.  And I can set certain
+influences at work.  I fancy the trial will be brief.  In six weeks you
+can expect to see me back again....  And under much happier
+circumstances I trust.  I'm afraid at present you have certain doubts
+of me.  Almost a dislike.  This has been such a beastly business!  When
+I come back my whole aim will be to remove your doubts.  To show you
+what I really am.  And what you mean to me.  Thank God! time is on my
+side!"
+
+Pen kept her eyes down to hide the thought she was sure must be
+speaking through them: "If you came back here under such circumstances
+I should kill you!"
+
+Her stillness frightened him.  He began to hedge.  "But what am I
+saying?  You don't have to wait for your money till I come back.  It is
+a matter I can arrange with my bankers.  You may expect a check within
+a week."
+
+Pen was not deceived of course.  She foresaw the silky, apologetic
+letter she would receive at the end of a week--without any check.  She
+was silent.
+
+Riever's instinct warned him against making any loverly demonstration
+at such a moment.  "Good-by," he said.
+
+Pen's generous, open nature imperiously demanded that she avow her true
+feelings, and crush him like the worm he was.  It cost her a frightful,
+silent struggle to keep it in.  She kept saying to herself
+mechanically: "We haven't convicted him yet.  I must go on deceiving
+him!"
+
+Without raising her eyes, she offered him her hand.  He carried it
+lightly to his lips, and quickly left the room.
+
+But how he got out, or what she herself did during the next half hour,
+Pen could never have told clearly.  When she came back to the
+realization of things it was to find herself kneeling at one of the
+windows in her room listening to the clank of the yacht's anchor chain.
+The sound seemed to be striking on her bare heart.  She saw the
+mud-hook slowly rise out of the water, and the yacht's screws set up a
+churning astern.  The graceful vessel began to move.  She came about in
+a wide circle and swept out of Pen's range of vision behind the trees.
+As she passed the lighthouse she saluted with three blasts of her
+melodious whistle, and the lighthouse bell tolled in answer.
+
+Somewhere in the bowels of that vessel, in darkness perhaps, and
+manacled, sat the bright-haired Don, grinning derisively at misfortune.
+He was depending on her; keeping himself up no doubt with the assurance
+that she had secured the money to save him ... Pen's head dropped on
+her arms.
+
+
+Upon the departure of the yacht, the crowd at Broome's Point quickly
+broke up.  Slow-moving ox-carts started up the Neck road, and noisy
+motor-boats put off up the river and across the Bay.  Before it was
+midday the old unbroken peace had descended on the remote estate, and
+all that had happened in between seemed like a dream.  As of old, the
+fish-hawks plunged for their wriggling prey, buzzards circled high in
+the blue, hens clucked contentedly at the kitchen door, and the turkeys
+set up a sudden gobbling in the fields.
+
+Pen could not long give herself up to despair.  She must act if she
+wished to save her sanity.  With a tormented face she went about the
+house in a whirl of activity.  Black Aunt Maria's eyes rolled askance
+at her mistress.  Pendleton remained down on the beach seeing the boats
+off.  Pen suspected he was purposely keeping out of her way.
+
+When he came in to dinner he was affecting an air of busy abstraction.
+When Pen addressed him he would reply, gently:
+
+"Don't interrupt me, my dear, I have an idea just taking shape in my
+mind."
+
+This was an old dodge of his, when he wished to escape something
+unpleasant.  Pen smiled to herself without mirth, and quietly bided her
+time.
+
+When he was finished eating he attempted to slide out of the room, but
+Pen was on the watch for that.
+
+"One moment, father."
+
+"Another time, my dear.  I must get this down on paper before it
+escapes me."
+
+Pen put herself determinedly between him and the door.  "Sorry," she
+said.  "But I have some rights as well as your ideas."
+
+"Only an ignorant person sneers at ideas," he said loftily.
+
+Pen refused to be drawn aside.  She began mildly: "Now that this
+business is over, I hope there's no objection to my going away for a
+little while."
+
+His eyes narrowed and hardened as a weak and stubborn man's must.  "Why
+should you go away now?" he demanded.  "The trouble is over.  This is
+the best place to rest."
+
+"Just the same I must go," said Pen.  "Will you give me the money?"
+
+"I'll take you for a visit to Cousin Laura Lee at Frederick," he said.
+"The trip will do us both good."
+
+"I must have more of a change than that," said Pen patiently.  "I need
+six hundred dollars."
+
+"Preposterous!" he cried.  "You know I have no such sum to fritter
+away!"
+
+"I have worked for you six years," said Pen wistfully.  "A hundred
+dollars a year does not seem much!"
+
+"Oh, if you're going to measure your duty towards me in dollars and
+cents!"
+
+"But I'm not!  I..."
+
+"That's enough.  I am your father.  I am the best judge of what is
+right for you."
+
+Pen was too sore at heart to be very patient.  "You got more money from
+Mr. Riever this morning," she said at a venture.
+
+There was a significant exchange of glances, startled on his part,
+quietly assured on hers.  He saw that it was useless to deny it.
+
+"Well, if I did," he said with dignity, "you may be sure it wasn't a
+gift.  I gave a fair return for it ... Anyway, that's my capital.  I
+can't spend it."
+
+"Did you undertake to keep me here for him?" Pen asked quietly.
+
+By the way he puffed out his cheeks and wagged his head she saw that
+she had guessed somewhere near the truth.  She was unspeakably
+saddened.  Her father!  What was the use?
+
+Meanwhile he was noisy in his aggrieved protestations.  "How can you
+say such a thing!  Am I not your father?  You must know that every act
+of mine is solely directed by a concern for your good.  My life is
+devoted to that end."
+
+Pen struggled on, though she was convinced of the hopelessness of it.
+"I grant that," she said.  "Willingly!  But you might be mistaken ..."
+
+"Never!" he cried, without any notion of his absurdity.
+
+"Well, we mustn't quarrel," said Pen.  "I appeal to your affection for
+me.  I seldom ask you for anything.  I am not one of the flighty kind.
+You must see that I am in deadly earnest.  I _must_ go away!  If I were
+kept here I should go out of my mind!"
+
+But cupidity had for the moment overcome his natural affections--as it
+has a way of doing.  "Pooh! you're talking like a flighty girl now," he
+said loftily.  "Permit me to be the judge of what is best for you."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Pen with a sudden change of tone.  "Let's say no
+more about it."
+
+Pendleton was a little astonished by his victory, for his case was bad.
+"Well, that's my own girl!" he said, approaching her full of fine,
+fatherly approval.
+
+Pen cast an odd, cold glance at him and passed out into the pantry.
+Pendleton went up-stairs feeling acutely uncomfortable.
+
+During the afternoon they pursued the usual routine.  Pen's first act
+was to let Doug out of the barn.  The good dog was wild with delight.
+Pendleton went for the mail.
+
+When he came into the house for supper, his eyes sought Pen's face with
+a furtive anxiety.  All was serene there, and his spirits rose
+mightily.  In all these years Pendleton had learned little about his
+daughter's nature.  He persisted in believing what he wished to
+believe.  During the meal he was affable and discursive.  Pen listened
+with a sufficient smile, and was as attentive as ever to his wants.
+
+They spent their usual quiet evening under the dining-room lamp, Pen
+with her mending, Pendleton with his newspaper.  An instinct of caution
+warned him not to read aloud any of the comment on the Counsell case.
+The news of the grand dénouement had not reached Baltimore in time for
+that morning's paper.  They retired early, Pen offering her cheek for
+the usual good-night kiss.
+
+As soon as the sounds of Pendleton's snores began to issue through the
+transom over his door, Pen came out of her room again.  She was dressed
+in hat and suit, and carried a small valise.  She also had a note
+addressed to Aunt Maria, giving certain directions for breakfast.  As
+Aunt Maria could not read, Pen knew that it would be brought to
+Pendleton's attention early.
+
+She slipped out of the house by the back door.  Doug in his kennel
+whined with pleasure.  She unfastened him with an admonition to
+silence.  Doug was too experienced a dog to waste much energy in
+unnecessary noise.  Pen walked swiftly back through the paddock, and
+through the stable yard gate to the road.  Doug ran ahead with his tail
+high.  It was a fair night with a pale sky, and dim stars.
+
+She was too early.  She loafed along the road.  At the gate to the
+distant field where the sheep were pastured, she leaned her elbows on
+the bars waiting for the moon, while Doug pursued his canine
+investigations far and near.  He had all the lost time of his
+imprisonment to make up.  Finally when the silver rim appeared, Pen let
+down the bars and whistled for him.
+
+"Fetch them out, sir!" she said.  Doug knew his business thoroughly.
+
+Half an hour later the huddled little flock was striking into the
+woods, with Pen at its heels and Doug, all intent now upon his charges.
+Pen paused to let them drink their fill in the little stream that
+flowed across the road.  They plodded on through clogging sand and
+around mudholes that never dried up from one year's end to another.
+There was no regular beat to the thudding little hoofs, for those in
+the van were always hanging back, and those in the rear running to
+catch up.  They passed along in little gusts of sound, like nervous
+fingers drumming on a window pane.  Pen was choked with dust.  "What
+will I look like in the morning?" she thought.
+
+Little owls mourned far off, this way and that, and occasionally the
+bark of a fox brought Doug to a stand with raised ruff and murmured
+growl.  Through openings in the branches, stray shafts of moonlight
+fell on the backs of the sheep making them look like little gray ghosts
+creeping along with bowed shoulders.  There was a place miles deep in
+the woods where they passed a squatter's shack close beside the road.
+The nervous patter of hoofs brought a figure to the open door.  In a
+curiously tense pose he watched them pass; transfixed; without a sound.
+
+It was ten miles through the woods to the fork in the road where you
+took the right-hand-turn down to the wharf at Hungerford's Run, three
+miles further.  Endless it seemed to Pen, the way the road twisted
+aimlessly first off in one direction, then back in the other.  It was
+level for the most part except for once or twice when it precipitated
+them into a gully with a branch over which Pen had to jump.  In spite
+of scurrying hoofs their net progress was slow.  Dawn had broken before
+they came out on the open road.  Pen dreading curious eyes urged them
+on as fast as she could.
+
+She had one encounter.  A farmer early at the plow, turned his team at
+the end of his furrow, just as Pen with her convoy passed in the road
+below.  His jaw dropped; he all but rubbed his eyes at the strange
+spectacle of a modishly-dressed (to him) young lady covered with dust,
+driving a flock of sheep miles from anywhere.  Pen did not know him,
+but he, by a process of elimination guessed who she must be.  His face
+expressed a sort of agony of curiosity until the obvious explanation
+occurred to him, when it cleared.
+
+"Driving your sheep to the steamboat?" he said.
+
+"Yes," said Pen, blushing, and looking straight ahead.
+
+He clambered over the fence, and slid down the bank to her side.  "I
+just put up my clover last week," he said in friendly fashion.  "Next
+field on the left.  Drive 'em in and let 'em crop awhile.  You got
+plenty time."
+
+Pen thanked him.  He walked beside her, glancing at her from the
+corners of his eyes.  He opened a gate for her, and the grateful sheep
+scattered inside to their breakfast.
+
+"You come far?" he ventured.
+
+Pen nodded.
+
+"Come through the woods at night alone!"
+
+"I had my dog."
+
+"Well it's more than I would have done.  Why didn't you ride a hoss?"
+
+"I'm going up on the boat," said Pen.  "Had no way of getting the horse
+back.  The dog can find his own way of course."
+
+"Well, you're a good plucky young lady, I'll say ... You'll find a good
+spring down at the foot of the slope, yonder.  How about some
+breakfast, I'll be going home to mine, directly."
+
+"I brought it with me, thank you," said Pen, indicating the valise.
+
+With many a backward look he returned to his horses, and Pen was free
+to wash at the spring, and brush her clothes.
+
+Arriving at the dilapidated wharf a mile or so farther, she had to run
+a gauntlet of curious stares.  Everybody wished to help her, and the
+sheep were quickly penned and tagged.  Pen could see in the men's eyes
+what a storm of gossip would break loose once her back was turned, but
+she cared little about that.
+
+The steamboat on her up trip was due at eight o'clock.  Pen's chief
+anxiety was lest it should be delayed long enough to allow her father
+to reach Hungerford's Run on horseback.  Pendleton had no right to stop
+her of course, and nothing he might say could shake her determination;
+but she shuddered at the idea of washing the family linen there on the
+beach before strangers.
+
+However the _Princess Anne_ arrived before her father, and the sheep
+were driven aboard.  Pen put her arms around the good dog's neck,
+careless of who might witness her emotion.
+
+"I can't take you!  I can't take you!" she murmured.  "Do not blame me
+for it!"
+
+They had to lock Doug in the little warehouse before she could go
+aboard.  Pen listened to him flinging himself against the door, and
+heard his sharp, anguished barks, feeling like a traitress.
+
+The steamboat proceeded on her leisurely course from wharf to wharf up
+the bay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+IN CHAMBERS
+
+The Criminal Court Building in New York City is a huge square block of
+yellow brick with an incongruous cornice and grandiose trimmings.  It
+is of the Tammany period.  Among architectural aberrations, architects
+give it a leading place.  It was run up on the site of an old pond, and
+was no sooner up than it threatened to fall down again.  There was a
+great scare at the time, but that has long ago been forgotten.  The
+monument still stands, secure in its ugliness.
+
+It is one of the busiest places in the city.  It knows no long
+vacations during the heated term.  Day in and day out the mills of
+justice grind feverishly without ever quite catching up with the grist
+that is offered.  Judges from quieter jurisdictions up state have
+continually to be imported to relieve the overworked metropolitan
+incumbents.
+
+Within the building there is a vast enclosed court surrounded by wide,
+cement-paved galleries tier above tier.  Every day during court hours
+these galleries are thronged with what is surely the most diverse
+collections of humanity ever brought together under a roof; witnesses
+principally, or friends of the accused.  Every walk of life is
+represented; every stratum of society.  But among the countless types
+four are repeated over and over; wary-eyed initiates of the underworld,
+weeping women, shabby insinuating lawyers looking for business, and
+detectives with eyes as wary as the gunmen, but better fed men and full
+of a conscious rectitude.  Dozens of little dramas are going on
+simultaneously.
+
+On a certain stifling morning in mid-summer, amongst the dozens of
+court-rooms the interest of the building was focused in General
+Sessions, Part One, where the case of the People versus Counsell was
+being tried under Stockman, J.  A murder trial.  Common as they are in
+that building a murder trial never quite loses its zest, and this,
+owing to the prominence of the persons concerned, was a celebrated
+case.  Every morning a great crowd struggled to get into the courtroom,
+though the evidence was not of a sensational nature.  There was no
+woman in the case.  It was a foregone conclusion too; one of those
+cases which had been tried out in the newspapers before being brought
+into court, and a verdict of guilty rendered.  Nobody had a good word
+for the defendant except the morbid women who stormed the court-room
+doors, and who secured a majority of the seats inside, simply because
+they were more persistent than the men.  These women always sympathize
+with the prisoner, particularly if, as in this case, he happens to be
+young and comely.
+
+As a result of the furore in the newspapers many days had been taken up
+in the effort to secure an impartial jury.  But once the taking of
+evidence began the proceedings moved swiftly enough.  Only two days had
+been required by the prosecutor to present his case.  Hackett, the
+particular star of the district-attorney's office, handled it.  He had
+scarcely been obliged to exert himself; everything was going his way.
+In three days more the defendant's direct testimony was all in.
+Counsell was his own principal witness.  He had told a straightforward
+story on the stand, and a ruthless cross-examination had failed to
+shake it.  Unfortunately for him he had no witnesses to support his
+story.  Proof of it rested with the dead man.  There had been no
+witnesses to the final scene between them.  The trial had now reached
+the stage of rebuttal testimony offered by the People.
+
+When Court adjourned for the noon recess, Corveth of Defendant's
+counsel made his way out of the building with a heavy air of dejection.
+He was a young man, the same age as the prisoner, an old friend it was
+said, and he had full charge of Counsell's case.  He had put up a
+strenuous fight for his friend, but not perhaps a brilliant one.  He
+was a first-rate lawyer, but he lacked the art of certain famous
+pleaders who, when they have a bad case, set out to charm and dazzle
+judge and jury with moving if irrelevant eloquence.  Corveth was in
+deadly earnest.  He passionately believed in his client's innocence,
+but he had scarcely succeeded in proving it.  And he had often
+irritated the Bench by his dogged fight on points of law which took up
+time without apparently getting anywhere.  Even now it was a mistake of
+tactics for Corveth so clearly to betray his discouragement to the
+inquisitive observers in the galleries.
+
+Two hours later when he returned, the man's whole bearing had changed.
+Dejection had given place to an air of excitement so great that it was
+impossible to tell whether it was a pleasurable excitement or the
+reverse.  His pale skin seemed to gleam with excitement; his clothing
+was a little disarranged; the man looked slightly stunned.
+
+He was escorting a heavily veiled woman, a young woman judging from her
+figure and carriage, and they were followed by such an oddly-assorted
+group as you could only find walking together in that building.
+Witnesses obviously.  It included two other women, one a flashy, pretty
+little thing, with hard, assured eyes, the other a domestic servant
+apparently.  The men ranged all the way from a highly prosperous
+gentleman, a banker possibly, down to a couple of taxi-drivers and a
+farm laborer.  The word went around the galleries like wildfire that
+there was something up in the Counsell case, and a new crowd pressed to
+the doors of the courtroom.  It was too late to get in.  Corveth left
+his witnesses outside where they remained guarded by a couple of young
+men from his office against the questions of the curious.
+
+Within the court-room Corveth was seen to enter into an excited,
+whispered discussion with the defendant.  Corveth was the excited one.
+Counsell appeared to be trying to soothe him.  Their talk was
+interrupted by the entrance of the Judge.
+
+When the proceedings were opened Corveth rose and in a voice that
+trembled oddly said: "If it please your Honor since we adjourned
+important new evidence has been offered to me."
+
+The judge stared and bit his lip in irritation.  There were so many
+cases on his calendar!  Were they all to be dragged out past all reason
+by the lawyers!  This of course was merely the grand stand play of a
+lawyer with a bad case.  To do him justice, his Honor controlled his
+irritation before he spoke.
+
+"Mr. Corveth, I trust you have taken thought of what you are saying.
+You have had every opportunity to present your case."
+
+"Twelve new witnesses have just been brought to me, sir, whose
+existence I never suspected."
+
+"Twelve!  How could that be?  You have been studying this case for
+weeks.  In what manner were new witnesses brought to you at this late
+date?"
+
+"They were brought to me by a person interested in this case, who has
+been conducting an investigation unknown to me."
+
+"And you say their evidence is important?"
+
+"Of the utmost importance, sir.  It throws an entirely new light on the
+case."
+
+In his irritation the overworked judge was understood to mutter: "I
+doubt it!"
+
+Corveth flushed crimson, but held his tongue.
+
+Observing the flush, his Honor went on more mildly, but still with
+bitterness: "Understand, Mr. Corveth, it is not your word that I doubt,
+but only your estimate of the importance of this evidence.  A long
+experience on the bench has taught me that matters which appear of
+overwhelming importance to opposing counsel, have a way of shrinking
+sadly when they are brought out on the stand."
+
+A titter went around the court-room.  The gavel rapped viciously.
+
+"Should this evidence not be admitted sir, it may put the State to the
+expense of a new trial."
+
+The Assistant District Attorney was on his feet.  "I object.  Surely it
+is grossly improper for Counsel to make such statements in the hearing
+of the jury."
+
+"It is only his opinion," said the judge wearily.  "It will not appear
+in the record."  To Corveth he said: "Well, what do you want me to do?"
+
+"To give me time to hear these persons' stories, sir.  An adjournment
+until to-morrow morning."
+
+The judge said nothing, but his face was set hard against it.
+
+"Or if Mr. Hackett is willing to go on with his evidence in rebuttal, I
+only ask for leave to re-open my case to-morrow.  I can sit up all
+night."
+
+Mr. Hackett smiled rather pityingly.  "With all respect to Counsel," he
+said, "I don't see that anything is to be gained by going on if Mr.
+Corveth is going to introduce an entirely new element."
+
+"I agree with you," said the judge.  He appeared to have made up his
+mind.  "Mr. Corveth," he went on, "you realize of course that if I give
+you this time the District-Attorney is entitled to a similar
+indulgence.  Where would we end?  These gentlemen on the jury have
+already been detained from their homes and their businesses for many
+days.  I owe them the greatest consideration.  I must have some further
+assurance of the importance of your evidence before I can consent to
+any delay.  You say this story has just been told you by somebody.  Is
+he present?"
+
+"It is a woman, your Honor.  She is present."
+
+The court-room pricked up its ears.
+
+"Then why not put her on the stand?"
+
+"It would be useless, your Honor.  She could give little or no direct
+testimony as to what occurred.  She has _collected_ the testimony and
+brought me the witnesses."
+
+"They are here, too?  Then put your principal witness on the stand.  I
+will give you as much latitude as I can in questioning him.  And if
+anything important transpires I will grant the adjournment you ask for."
+
+"I thank your Honor.  Unfortunately, as I understand it, none of these
+witnesses can tell a complete story of what happened.  Each one can
+only add a link or two to the chain.  You could scarcely judge from the
+testimony of any one of them how important their evidence would be
+taken collectively."
+
+His Honor sighed for patience, and bit his lip.
+
+"But if I might offer a suggestion, sir...?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Could you not request the jury to retire and hear this lady's story in
+your chambers?  You could then decide in a few minutes whether or not
+it warranted an adjournment."
+
+His Honor tapped his desk reflectively with a pencil.
+
+The Assistant-District-Attorney was protesting.  "Your Honor, whatever
+may come of this matter, an impression is being created here highly
+prejudicial to the case of the people..."
+
+Corveth interrupted him: "I should be quite willing to have Mr. Hackett
+present while this lady is telling her story, so that he may have the
+fullest opportunity to meet the evidence she has to offer."
+
+This more than anything Corveth had said, inclined the judge to believe
+that he really had something up his sleeve.  Moreover it was a generous
+offer.  The judicial face thawed a little on defendant's counsel.  It
+then turned to the jury.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury I will ask you to retire for a few minutes to
+give me the opportunity of deciding whether this evidence is material
+to the case."
+
+The jury filed out in one direction, and his honor went the other, his
+silken robe billowing behind him.  The court-room buzzed with an
+excited whispering: "What do you suppose is up?"
+
+Corveth brought the veiled woman to the Judge's room through another
+door.  "Chambers" was simply a smallish room with a ceiling so lofty
+that it gave the effect of a room stood up on the wrong end.  A wide
+flat-topped desk filled a great part of the floor space.  His Honor,
+brought down from the eminence of his dais was revealed as a smallish
+man with a wise, humane face, much harassed as the result of over-work.
+In the little room he looked much more human.
+
+He waved the lady to a chair at his right hand.  Hackett, with a
+cynical expression, lounged in a chair by the window.  Corveth was too
+nervous to sit.  As the lady seated herself she threw back her veil.
+
+"Miss Broome!" exclaimed the judge in surprise.  "You have already
+testified in this case!"  He looked reproachfully at Corveth.  Corveth
+signed to him to wait.
+
+"Did you not tell all you know?" Judge Stockman demanded.
+
+Pen slowly shook her head.
+
+"How do you reconcile that with your conscience?"
+
+"I answered all the questions," she said softly.  "Mr. Corveth could
+not ask me about these other matters, because he knew nothing of them."
+
+"But you are acting in the defendant's interest, I assume.  Surely his
+Counsel had a right to know what was going on."
+
+"It was not from any lack of confidence in him," Pen said, with a warm
+glance at Corveth.  "It would have been fatal to us if the least
+whisper of what we were doing had got about before we had complete
+proof.  We tried our best to obtain a postponement of the trial.  When
+that was denied it was very difficult to know what to do.  Mr. Counsell
+decided, and I agreed with him, that we must go ahead and keep
+everything hidden.  We did not tell Mr. Corveth because he is too
+honest to play a part.  If he had known what we knew, our enemies would
+have read it in his face in the court-room.  If we have acted wrongly I
+hope you will remember that we had a powerful and unscrupulous enemy."
+
+His Honor did not appear much impressed, though it was not hidden that
+he approved of Pen's exterior.  "And do you think you have complete
+proof now?" he asked with an indulgent smile.
+
+"I obtained it only yesterday, sir."
+
+"Well, tell me what you expect to prove."
+
+Pen looked rather helpless.  "Mr. Corveth said I must be brief ...
+There is so much to tell...  I scarcely know where to begin..."
+
+Corveth prompted her.  "Tell Judge Stockman what witnesses you have
+brought me and what you expect to prove by each one."
+
+Pen nodded.  "The first witness will be a young woman named Blanche
+Paglar.  She will testify that up to the day that Collis Dongan was
+shot she was friends with ...  I mean lived with..."  She hesitated,
+blushing.
+
+Corveth helped her out with the legal euphemism.
+
+"Yes, she was the common-law-wife of a young man known as Spike Talley.
+She will testify that Talley told her at this time that he had
+undertaken a job for a rich man, whose name he never told her, and that
+he was to get ten thousand dollars for it."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Judge Stockman.  "What sort of job?"
+
+"Talley was what is called a gangster or a gunman," said Pen.  "When
+they say 'a job' they mean a killing, a murder."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the Judge.  "Do you mean to say you have had
+to associate with such people?"
+
+"They were kind to me," said Pen simply.
+
+"Go on."
+
+"She will testify that Spike Talley's duties in connection with his
+'job' necessitated his putting on dress clothes every evening and going
+to a certain fashionable hotel to dine.  He never told her the name of
+the hotel, but on one occasion he brought her a menu-card with the name
+torn off.  That card will be identified as one from the Hotel
+Warrington."
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed his Honor as the connection began to show.
+
+"Talley also told her that his 'boss' gave him a drink of whiskey every
+time he went to his house.  He described to her how it stood on the
+sideboard in a handsome, square, cut-glass bottle, and how he was
+always invited to help himself."
+
+"The importance of this will appear later," murmured Corveth.
+
+Pen went on: "Blanche will testify that Spike Talley left her for the
+last time on the afternoon of May 27th, the day of the murder.  Some
+days later she reported his disappearance to the police.  They could
+find no trace of him, if indeed they ever looked.  Blanche never
+connected his disappearance with the death of Collis Dongan, because
+the newspapers made out from the beginning that it was certain Mr.
+Counsell had committed that crime."
+
+His Honor was now thoroughly interested in Pen's story.  Even
+Assistant-District-Attorney Hackett had lost a good deal of his
+scornful air.  The judge said:
+
+"But if this Talley has disappeared can you _prove_ anything?"
+
+"You'll see, sir...  The next witness is a taxi-driver who was a friend
+of Spike Talley's.  He will testify that at this time Talley came to
+his garage every evening and engaged the witness to drive him up to the
+Hotel Warrington.  I could prove by waiters in the hotel that Talley
+dined there every evening--they have identified his photograph, but Mr.
+Corveth says it will hardly be necessary, because the next witness, Mr.
+Slaughter, would carry more weight.
+
+"Mr. Slaughter is a gentleman of means and position who resides at the
+Warrington.  He will tell how he became acquainted with Talley through
+seeing him dine at the next table.  Talley was a young man of much
+charm of manner.  Mr. Slaughter never suspected what he was.  The two
+became quite friendly, and on a number of occasions after dinner, Mr.
+Slaughter invited Talley up to his apartment which was on the same
+floor as Mr. Dongan's and Mr. Counsell's.  Mr. Slaughter will further
+testify how on one occasion he discovered Talley ... what would you say
+... flirting with the hotel maid on that floor, and remonstrated with
+him.  Talley passed it off with a laugh.  Talley visited him for the
+last time on the night of the murder.
+
+"The next witness will be the maid, Mary Crehan.  She will tell how
+Talley 'made up to her' as she says, and how on one occasion he took
+her to a moving picture theater.  It appears from what she recollects
+of their conversation that Talley was pumping her for information as to
+the lay-out of Mr. Dongan's apartment, and Mr. Counsell's, and
+information as to the habits of the two men.  But he did this so
+adroitly that the girl never thought of connecting him later with the
+shooting.  She will testify how one evening after having talked with
+Talley in the corridor, she missed her keys.  It never entered her head
+that the fashionably-dressed young gentleman had anything to do with
+it.  She found them the next night in the cupboard on that floor where
+she was accustomed to leave them upon going off duty.  The bunch
+consisted of half a dozen master keys which would admit her to any
+apartment on that floor.
+
+"The next witness is a locksmith, an acquaintance of Talley's, who will
+identify the maid's keys as the same bunch brought to him by Talley to
+be duplicated.  He did duplicate them, and handed both sets to Talley,
+This was about ten days before the murder.
+
+"The next witness is another taxi-driver who had no acquaintance with
+Talley, but is prepared to identify his photograph as that of a man who
+engaged him outside the Hotel Warrington about midnight on May 27th."
+
+"Midnight?" interrupted Judge Stockman.  "That was _after_ the murder.
+Can't you connect this Talley directly with the deed?"
+
+"No, sir.  He was too clever ... Besides that was not my principal
+object.  I was looking for proof against his employer."
+
+"Oh, do you know him too?"
+
+Pen nodded.
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+"This taxi-cab driver could not at first remember the address to which
+he had driven Talley, but he gave us the locality, and when we drove
+with him through the streets of that neighborhood he unhesitatingly
+picked out the house."
+
+"How could he do that?"
+
+"Well, it was a peculiar looking house; different from any other in the
+neighborhood, from any other in town probably.  It is in Thirty-Ninth
+street, East of Lexington."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"He stalled his engine and had to get out of his car to start it.  Thus
+he saw Talley admitted to the house, and had a glimpse of the man who
+admitted him.  Out of a number of photographs handed him he picked out
+one which he is ready to swear is that of the man who admitted Talley."
+
+"He could have got but the briefest of glances."
+
+"But it is of a striking-looking man, your Honor."
+
+"What next?"
+
+Pen said slowly: "Talley was never seen alive after that."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Judge Stockman, "you charge a second murder! ... Go
+on."
+
+"For many days we could get no further," Pen said.  "Finally one of
+Talley's friends volunteered to break into that house to look for
+evidence."
+
+"But this is burglary!"
+
+"The witness, known as Babe Riordan, is prepared to waive immunity when
+he goes on the stand.  If a charge is laid against him he will stand
+his trial."
+
+"Did he find anything in the house?"
+
+"He found the square, cut-glass whiskey bottle on the sideboard.  It
+had been emptied, but we took it to a chemist, our next witness, who is
+prepared to testify that it contained well defined traces of cyanide."
+
+His Honor frowned.  "Dubious evidence!" he said.  "Even suppose a jury
+were inclined to believe the chemist, how would they know but that the
+last witness, a self-confessed burglar, remember, did not put the
+poison in the bottle himself?"
+
+"There is more evidence," said Pen.  "It appears that according to the
+law a druggist may not sell such poisons without a doctor's
+prescription.  A search was conducted through the various drug-stores
+in the neighborhood, and several prescriptions for cyanide traced back.
+One was traced to the man who occupies that house on Thirty-Ninth
+street."
+
+"The man identified by the second taxi-driver as he who admitted Talley
+to the house?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Ah then, you're getting closer to it.  Who is this man?"
+
+Pen hesitated.  "Mr. Corveth told me that his name should not be
+mentioned at this trial."
+
+His Honor looked a little nonplussed.  "... Er ... well perhaps not ...
+perhaps not!  Have you more evidence against him?"
+
+"We can show that three days before the murder he drew ten thousand
+dollars in cash from the bank."
+
+"Ah, the price named by the first witness.  But what good will that do
+you if it is your contention that he murdered his tool instead of
+paying him?"
+
+"Because we can show that the day after the murder he re-deposited the
+amount in another bank."
+
+"Ah!  Anything else?"
+
+"Our next task of course was to try to prove what had become of
+Talley's body.  This took us many more days."
+
+"You engaged detectives to help you?"
+
+"No, sir.  I hadn't money enough.  But all of Spike Talley's friends
+helped me.  They proved themselves as good detectives as professionals."
+
+"But they are only making out their friend to be a murderer!"
+
+"They seem not to mind that.  According to their code he was simply
+doing his job.  Instead of getting his pay for it he was murdered.
+They wish to avenge him by helping to convict his murderer.  I might
+say that if it was not for me they would probably choose a more direct
+way of avenging him, but I have persuaded them that it would be a much
+more terrible punishment to bring the murderer into court."
+
+His Honor wagged his head.  "You have been keeping strange company,
+young lady!"
+
+"I had no choice, sir."
+
+"I suppose you know that these gunmen, gangsters, burglars and so on
+are not very credible witnesses."
+
+"They are not my principal witnesses, sir.  I rely chiefly on Mr.
+Slaughter, the different professional men, the servants, the second
+taxi-driver, all of whom are obviously disinterested."
+
+"Where did you get so much information about what constitutes evidence
+and so on."
+
+"We had legal advice, sir.  Not from Mr. Corveth, but from another
+lawyer, who once defended Spike Talley."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"We had the house on Thirty-Ninth street searched from top to bottom
+without discovering any clues as to what became of the body.  It was
+not until we went to Mr. ... to the rich man's country place, that we
+began to make progress.  We learned there, that two days after the
+murder, that was Sunday, the owner brought a barrel up from the city in
+the back of his automobile.  He informed his servants that it contained
+a new poison with which he intended to spray his fruit trees--I should
+explain that he is an extensive raiser of fruit, and under his
+supervision the barrel was put in a little shed in one of the orchards
+where the spraying apparatus, the poisons and so on were kept."
+
+"Can't you establish a connection between the barrel and the house on
+Thirty-Ninth street?"
+
+"To a certain extent, yes.  When we learned of the barrel some of us
+went back to the Thirty-Ninth street neighborhood to investigate.  We
+have a grocer who will testify that he sold such an empty barrel to the
+man in question, who was particular to see that he got a perfectly
+fitting head to the barrel.  He told the grocer he wanted to ship some
+china up to his country place.  He carried the barrel away in his car."
+
+"Did the grocer know the man who bought the barrel?"
+
+"No, sir.  But he can identify the man.  And describe the car."
+
+"Well, assuming that the barrel contained a body when it arrived at the
+country place, what became of it after that?"
+
+"We have one of the rich man's laborers to testify to that.  On the
+following day, Monday, this man was ordered to assist his master in one
+of the orchards.  The day is fixed in the man's mind because it was
+Decoration Day and he was disappointed of getting a holiday.  I should
+tell you that the rich man personally supervised his orchards and often
+worked in them himself, so that his actions on this day excited no
+particular remark among his servants.  He ordered the laborer to gather
+up all the piles of twigs and branches which had been pruned in that
+particular orchard during the winter, and make one great pile to be
+burned.  He pointed out a spot of waste ground at a little distance
+from the trees where the fire was to be made.  He then went away.
+
+"He returned to the orchard when the work was done.  He then had a
+small can of coal oil.  His laborer ventured to remonstrate with him on
+the danger of making so great a fire, but his master curtly replied
+that he knew what he was about.  He sent the laborer on an errand to a
+distant part of the estate, saying that he would remain to watch the
+fire.  The laborer after his rebuke, with a natural hope perhaps that
+the fire would get beyond his master, concealed himself behind some
+shrubbery at a little distance and watched.
+
+"He saw his master go to the spraying house, bring out the barrel (he
+will testify that there was no other barrel of that sort in the house)
+and roll it down the orchard to the great heap of branches.  He saw him
+place it in the center of the pile, pour coal oil all around, and set
+it afire.  When the flames sprang up, the master began to look about
+him suspiciously, and the laborer fearing discovery, hastened away and
+saw no more.  He told what he had seen to his mates, but it does not
+appear that any of them suspected that a crime had occurred.  All their
+master's actions appeared to them so arbitrary and eccentric they never
+tried to explain them.  As one of them said, 'You never knew what the
+boss was going to do next!'"
+
+"Have you anything more?" asked the judge.
+
+"Yes, sir.  I will be the next witness.  I will tell how the laborer
+took me to the spot where the fire had been, and how I searched it.
+Several weeks had passed, and the rains had leached out the ashes, but
+the place had not been disturbed by a rake or cultivator."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"In the center where the heat had been greatest there was nothing but
+washed out ashes, but all around the edge were the unconsumed ends of
+twigs and branches looking as if they had been arranged in an exact
+circle with all the charred ends pointing to the center.  I searched
+every square inch of the spot while the laborer watched me."
+
+"Where was the master of the place?"
+
+"Oh, I took care to inform myself beforehand that he was not going to
+be there at that time."
+
+"And you found...?"
+
+"Some little burned lumps of bone, but it was impossible to say of
+what.  A little lump of gold that might have been a finger ring--Talley
+wore such a ring, but it had melted into a shapeless lump.  A piece of
+scorched fabric barely recognizable as part of the brim of a man's silk
+hat.  Finally, in a slight depression where water had gathered, part of
+a jawbone in which six teeth were still fairly intact."
+
+The Judge shook his head frowning.  "Scarcely conclusive!  Scarcely
+conclusive!"
+
+"There is one more witness, sir," said Pen.  "Considerable dental work
+had been done on the teeth, and the fillings were still intact.  One of
+the teeth it appeared was false, and it had been fastened to its
+fellows on either side in an ingenious fashion."
+
+"Ha!"
+
+"Talley it appeared was vain of his personal appearance, and employed a
+first-class dentist.  The dentist is prepared to go on the stand and
+swear from the work on the teeth that this is a part of Talley's jaw."
+
+"From memory?"
+
+"No, sir.  He is a modern dentist.  He will offer his record in
+evidence, which includes diagrams of the man's mouth, showing the work
+he did on it from time to time."
+
+Judge Talley forgetting judicial calm jumped up.  "Ha! then you _have_
+a case!" he cried.  "Eh, Mr. Hackett?"
+
+"If it can be proved to the satisfaction of a jury," said the
+Assistant-District-Attorney sourly.
+
+Judge Stockman paced slowly up and down.  "This is extraordinary ....
+extraordinary!" he murmured.  He came to a stand in front of Pen.
+"Miss Broome, has this man been in court?"
+
+"No, sir.  But his representatives are always there.  I don't doubt but
+he receives hourly reports of the proceedings."
+
+"I think you had better tell me the name of the man you accuse.  Not
+with any idea of injecting it into this case, but simply that
+precautions may be taken against his escape.  The police should be
+notified."
+
+Pen looked at Corveth, who nodded.
+
+"It is Ernest Riever," she said.
+
+The effect on the two men was electrical.  Hackett jumped to his feet,
+and supported himself with a hand on the back of his chair.
+
+"Impossible!" he cried.
+
+Judge Stockman in his amazement was staring at Pen almost clownishly.
+"Riever...!" he stammered.  "Riever! ... Have you thought of what you
+are saying!"
+
+A little flame of indignation was lighted in Pen's cheeks.  "If he did
+it, does it make any difference who he is?"
+
+"Certainly not!  Certainly not! ... But Riever! ... We must be very
+sure!  This would cause the greatest sensation of our time!"
+
+"Best to proceed very slowly, sir!" said Hackett, pale with agitation.
+
+"I have nothing to do with it!" said Judge Stockman with undisguised
+relief.  "My duty is simply to try Counsell.  The rest is up to the
+District-Attorney."
+
+"No motive has been established," said Hackett.
+
+"True!  True!"  The Judge turned almost accusingly to Pen.  "What
+possible reason could Riever have had?"
+
+Corveth answered for her.  "I take it, it is not necessary to go into
+Riever's motives in this trial.  But we are prepared to show a motive
+just the same.  Do you remember the Riever divorce case three years
+ago?"
+
+"Dimly."
+
+"It was a counter-suit.  Mrs. Riever won.  Riever's case rested
+principally on a letter that he produced in court.  It had been written
+by Mrs. Riever to some unnamed man.  We can show that it had been
+written to Counsell, and that Riever knew it had."
+
+The judge stared.  "Then your contention is that Riever had this
+inoffensive man Dongan killed merely so that he could get back at
+Counsell?"
+
+"There is more evidence on that point besides what Miss Broome has
+brought out here.  I don't need to point out to you how nearly Riever
+succeeded in his object."
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Judge Stockman,
+
+"That would be something new in criminal jurisprudence," sneered
+Hackett.
+
+"But not entirely unprecedented," corrected the breathless judge.
+"There was the famous Anstey case so often quoted when I was a young
+lawyer.  And of more recent years the cases of the People vs. Reichardt
+and the People vs. Bowley ... But good God! ... Riever...!"
+
+The little judge seemed to have been brought to a complete stand.  He
+stared ahead of him muttering: "Ernest Riever! ... Good God! ... What a
+sensation will be caused...!"
+
+Corveth said: "That is all Miss Broome had to tell you, sir."
+
+It brought the judge to himself with a start.  "To be sure!  To be
+sure!" he said, and cleared his throat.  He looked his age.  "I will
+adjourn court until to-morrow morning.  Mr. Hackett, you will get in
+touch with the police I suppose.  If I were you, I would not take more
+than one man into my confidence, say Inspector Durdan of the detective
+bureau."
+
+Hackett bowed in acquiescence.
+
+"Gentlemen, let us return to the court-room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+EXTRA!
+
+From the _New York Courier_, July 27th, 192--
+
+At 3.40 this afternoon Ernest Riever was found dead in a house he
+occasionally occupied at -- East 39th street, this city.  He had shot
+himself through the head.
+
+The sensational developments in the Counsell case during the past two
+days were brought to a still more sensational conclusion this afternoon
+when Ernest Riever was discovered to have killed himself.  Ever since
+yesterday morning it has been an open secret around town that Riever
+was the unnamed millionaire so often referred to in the new evidence
+brought forward in Counsell's defense.  It now appears that Riever has
+been under the surveillance of the police for three days, and this
+afternoon detective officers were sent to the above address to arrest
+him.  Their ringing at the door elicited no response, and as the men
+who had been detailed to trail Riever insisted that he was in the
+house, an entrance was forced.
+
+Mr. Riever was discovered lying in his dining-room with an automatic
+pistol in his hand.  There was nobody else in the house.  He had held
+the pistol under his chin pointing upward.  There was smoke in the
+room, and the body was warm, indicating that the deed was done as the
+officers rang the bell.  Death was instantaneous.  So ends one of the
+strangest stories that has ever come to light in our courts.
+
+Mr. Riever's self-inflicted death renders the acquittal of Counsell
+merely a matter of form.  It is said that the District-Attorney will
+now make no effort to refute the testimony tending to show that Collis
+Dongan was shot by an agent acting under Riever's instructions.  The
+jury is expected to bring in a verdict without leaving their seats.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+"Don't drive so fast Don!  It makes my hair rise the way you take these
+curves!"
+
+"I'll try to remember ... Lord! but it's good to have an accelerator
+under your big toe again! ... This lil' ole bus is about all I own,
+Pen!"
+
+"You'll soon get a fresh start, now ... You're driving just as fast as
+ever!"
+
+"Sorry!  I feel as if that mob was still behind us.  Wasn't it ghastly!"
+
+"But they were friendly!"
+
+"Oh, friendly!  Three days ago they would just as lief have strung me
+up to a lamp-post.  I could feel it in the court-room."
+
+"Well, don't you suppose it was a feeling that they had been unjust to
+you that made them cheer so to-day when you appeared?"
+
+"I hope so.  I don't trust mobs ... Lord! when I came out and saw them
+massed in the street from curb to curb ... thousands! ... I could feel
+myself turning pea-green!  I had no idea I had become so famous."
+
+"They have been reading about nothing else for days."
+
+"What a lot of idle people there must be!"
+
+"I don't think it's idleness altogether.  But nothing ever happens to
+them.  They only live in the newspapers."
+
+"A good many cars followed us out of town.  When they saw which way we
+were heading I suppose they'll wire the news, and cheering crowds will
+be waiting for us..."
+
+"Oh, Don!"
+
+"I'll fool 'em!  I'll circle around outside Philadelphia and all the
+big towns."
+
+"It's horribly immoral our running off together in a car."
+
+"Oh, what do morals matter after what we've been through together! ...
+We couldn't get married in New York with that mob at our heels.  We can
+get hitched up wherever we happen to stop I suppose."
+
+"You take it coolly!"
+
+"I take it as a matter of course ... Shouldn't I?"
+
+"I don't want to be rushed into it!"
+
+"Pen! ... Have you any doubts of me?"
+
+"No!  How can you say such a thing!"
+
+"Then what is it? ... What brings the tears to your eyes, dearest?"
+
+"Nothing! ... Only I want to be quiet when I am married! ... I want to
+be quiet! ... Things are still roaring about me!"
+
+"Would you like me to take you home first?"
+
+"No!  I don't want you to leave me!"
+
+"Look out!  You'll have us in the ditch! ... What is it, dearest?  It's
+immoral our going away together.  But you don't want to marry me yet.
+But I mustn't leave you either!"
+
+"Oh, don't expect me to talk reasonably! ... I don't want to talk ...
+Marry me whenever you like, but don't talk about it ... I just want to
+be quiet ... with you!"
+
+"Suits me!  I'll bring you to quiet.  I know a little place in the
+Virginia foothills ... Oh, my Pen! ... Look behind us!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Is there anybody in sight?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"I'm going to stop for a moment.  Do you realize I haven't kissed you
+yet?"
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+  By HULBERT FOOTNER
+
+  Ramshackle House
+  The Deaves Affair
+  The Owl Taxi
+  The Substitute Millionaire
+  Thieves' Wit
+  New Rivers of the North
+
+
+  NEW YORK:
+  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ramshackle House, by Hulbert Footner
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57138 ***