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

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

She had indeed commenced adventures with a vengeance!

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

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

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

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

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

With this she was conscious of a flooding spirit of exultant impenitence; the deadly monotony of her days was done with once and for all. It mattered little that--since it were suicidal to return to the studio, the first place the police would search for her--she was homeless, friendless, penniless; it mattered little that she was hungry (now that she remembered it) and had not even a change of clothing for the morrow; these things would somehow be arranged--whether by luck or by virtue of her wit--they must!

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

Paradoxically, she was appalled by contemplation of her amazing callousness; outlawed, declassÉe, she was indifferent to her degradation, and alive only to the joy of freedom from the bondage of any certain social status.

Now as she lingered on the corner, people were passing her continually on their way over to the terminal; and one of these presently caught her attention--a man who, carrying a small oxford hand-bag, came up hastily from behind, started to cross the street, drew back barely in time to escape annihilation at the wheels of a flying squadron of taxicabs, and so for a moment waited, in impatient preoccupation with his own concerns, only a foot or two in advance but wholly heedless of the girl.

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

In another instant the way cleared and the man moved smartly on again, with every indication of one spurred on by an urgent errand--but went no more alone. Now a pertinacious shadow dogged him to the farther sidewalk, into the yawning vestibule of the railway station, on (at a trot) through its stupendous lobbies, even to the platform gates that were rudely slammed in his face by implacable destiny in the guise and livery of a gateman.

At this, pausing a little to one side, Sally watched Blue Serge accost the guardian, argue, protest, exhibit tickets, and finally endeavour to bribe a way past the barrier. But the train was already pulling out; with a shake of his stubborn head the uniformed official moved on; and ruminating on a power of pent profanity, Blue Serge turned and strode back into the waiting-room, passing so near to Sally that their elbows almost touched without his rousing to the least recognition of her existence.

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

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

"No," Authority averred with becoming sententiousness.

"An upper, then?"

"Nothing left an the midnight."

"Not even a stateroom?"

"I told you nothing doing."

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

"Wait a minute."

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

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

"Good enough. I'll take--"

If Blue Serge failed promptly to nominate his choice, it was only because Miss Manvers chose that juncture to furnish him--and incidentally herself, when she had time to think things over--with what was unquestionably for both of them the most staggering surprise of that most surprising night.

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

"Take both, if you please!"

Had she schemed deliberately to strike him dumb in consternation, her success must have afforded Sally intense satisfaction. Since she hadn't, her personal consternation was momentarily so overpowering as to numb her sense of appreciation. So that for the period of a long minute neither of them moved nor spoke; but remained each with a blank countenance reflecting a witless mind, hypnotised by the stupefaction of the other.

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

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

"Oh!" he replied stupidly.

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

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

"There is!"

"If you go to Boston, I go," she persisted stolidly. His countenance darkened transiently with distrust or temper. Then of a sudden the man was shaken by a spasm of some strange sort--the corners of his mouth twitched, his eyes twinkled, he lifted a quizzical eyebrow, his lips parted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"One o'clock."

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes--"

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

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

He suffered this instruction with a mildly anguished smile.

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

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

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

"I dare say."

"You won't put me wise?"

"Certainly not."

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

"Can one?"

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

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

"Good!" Blue Serge applauded. "Now I know where I stand. That baby stare is the high sign of our fraternity--of blackbirds. Only the guilty ever succeed in looking as transparently innocent. Too bad you didn't think of that in time."

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

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

"Oh, can't I?"

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

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

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

"How do you know it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surely a strange sort of criminal, she thought, with his humour and ready address, his sudden shifts from slang of the street to phrases chosen with a discriminating taste in English, his cool indifference to her threatening attitude, and his paradoxical pose of warm--it seemed--personal interest in and consideration for a complete and, to say the least, very questionable stranger.

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

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

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

"Very good, sir--immediately."

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

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

She wasn't able to rise to his irresponsible humour. Thus far her audacity seemed to have earned her nothing but his derision. He was not in the least afraid of her--and he was a desperate criminal. Then what was she in his esteem?

Such thoughts drove home a fresh painful realisation of her ambiguous personal status. It began to seem that she had been perhaps a little hasty in assuming she was to be spared punishment for her sin, however venial that might in charity be reckoned. Chance had, indeed, offered what was apparently a broad and easy avenue of escape; but her own voluntary folly has chosen the wrong turning.

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

"What have you done with them?"

He lifted the ironic eyebrow. " Them? "

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

"The deuce you did!"

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

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

"What have you done with them?"

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

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

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

"Outside?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just like him, too!" Blue Serge observed with a flash of indignation: "his kind, I mean--less burglars than bunglers, with no professional pride, no decent instincts, no human consideration. They never stop to think it's tough enough for a householder to come home to a cracked crib without finding a total stranger to boot--a man he's never even seen before, like as not--ah--weltering on the premises--"

"Oh, do be serious!"

"Must I? If you wish."

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

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

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

"You didn't leave him there'?"

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

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

"Pried it up with a jimmy."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Come!" the man rallied her sharply, if in an undertone, "this will never do. You're as white as a sheet, trembling and staring as if I were a leper--or a relation by marriage or--something repulsive!"

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

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

He seemed to find it easy enough to make talk; but Sally spared him little attention, being at first exclusively preoccupied with the demands of her hunger, and later--as the meal progressed, renewing her physical strength and turning the ebbing tide of her spirits--thoroughly engaged with the problem of how to extricate herself from this embarrassing association or, if extrication proved impossible, how to turn it to her own advantage. For if the affair went on this way--his way--she were a sorry adventuress indeed.

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

"You're feeling better'?"

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

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

"That I'm here, alive and whole, able to enjoy a most unique situation. Who are you?"

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

"Shan't tell."

"But if I insist?"

"Why don't you, then?"

"Meaning insistence won't get me anything?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Your home?" she parroted witlessly.

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

He produced and placed before her on the cloth a small white card; and as soon as its neat black script ceased to writhe and run together beneath her gaze she comprehended the name of Mr. Walter Arden Savage, with a residence address identical with that of the house wherein her great adventure had begun.

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

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

"But--"

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

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

He smiled thoughtfully down his nose. "It's really a chapter of accidents to which I'm indebted for this charming adventure," he pursued with a suavely personal nod, "beginning with the blow-out of the taxicab tire that made us five minutes late for this evening's boat. We were bound up the Sound, you understand, to spend a fortnight with a maternal aunt. And our luggage is well on its way there now. So when we missed the boat there was nothing for it but go by train. We taxied back here through that abominable storm, booked for Boston by the eleven ten, and ducked across the way to dine at the Biltmore. No good going home, of course, with the servants out--and everything. And just as we were finishing dinner this amiable sister of mine gave a whoop and let it out that she'd forgotten her jewels. Well, there was plenty of time. I put her aboard the train as soon as the sleepers were open--ten o'clock, you know--and trotted back home to fetch the loot."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the other hand, and even so . . .

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

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

"No need to be--none I know of, at least," he volunteered promptly, if without moderating his exacting stare.

"You don't understand--"

She hesitated, sighed, plunged in desperation. "It's no use; there's nothing for me to do but own up. What you were not to-night, Mr. Savage, I was."

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

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

"Still I don't see . . ."

"I'm coming to that. I live on your block--the Lexington Avenue end, of course--with two other girls. And this afternoon--the studio was so hot and stuffy and lonesome, with both my friends away--I went up on the roof for better air, and fell asleep there and got caught by the storm. Somebody had closed the scuttle, and I ran across roofs looking for another that wasn't fastened down, and when I found one--it was your house--I was so frightened by the lightning I hardly knew what I was doing. I just tumbled in--"

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

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

She halted, confused, realising how impossible it would be to convince anybody with the tale of her intention merely to borrow the clothing for a single night of arabesque adventure, finding it difficult now to believe in on her own part, and hurried breathlessly on to cover the hiatus.

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

He started as from deep reverie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"My dress! My hat!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus far, indeed, Sally had failed to detect anything in the atmosphere of the establishment or in the bearing of its mistress to bear out the innuendo that Gosnold House was infested by a parasitic swarm and "Aunt Abby" the dupe of her own unholy passions. Doubts hummed in Sally's head, and she was abruptly surprised to find the view obscured by a mist of her own making--by, in short, nothing less than tears.

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

A little gust of anger shook her--anger with her benefactors, that they could not have introduced her to this mundane paradise as her simple self, Miss Manvers--Sarah with the vulgar h--by her own merits and defects to stand or fall. . . .

But, as though the fates were weaving the fabric of her destiny less blindly than is their commonly reputed custom, the young woman's conscience during those few first hours had little time in which to work upon her better nature. Its first squeamish qualms, when it at length got Sally alone, were quickly counteracted by a knock at her door and what followed--the entrance of a quiet-mannered maid whose fresh-coloured countenance loomed like some amiable, mature moon above a double armful of summery apparel.

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

Carefully depositing her burden upon the bed, she beamed acknowledgment of Sally's breathless thanks and made off briskly, to return much too soon to suit one who would have been glad of longer grace in which to become more intimately acquainted with this new donation of her ravishing good fortune.

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

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

"Please don't trouble. I--"

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

"Oh!" Genuine disappointment was responsible for the exclamation. But a moment's thought persuaded Sally she had been unreasonable to hope her secret might be kept from the servants. Even if Mrs. Standish had not betrayed it to this maid, there had been that flunky, Thomas, in the reception-hall close at hand during the establishment of Sally's status, with his pose of inhuman detachment of interest--quite too perfect to be true.

"Beg pardon, ma'am?"

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

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

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

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

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

Another maid, less prepossessing, admitted her to the dressing-room of the woman of fashion; and this last greeted Sally with a fretful, preoccupied frown, visible in the mirror, which reflected as well the excellent results obtainable from discreet employment of a high-keyed palette.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, I am so sorry!"

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

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

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

He put his arms once more round her shoulders, and she did not resist him, but none the less held her head up and back, eying him steadily.

"I love you desperately, but I can't ask you to marry me until I get the permission of my family. Till then . . . is there any reason . . .? Be kind to me, be sweet to me, O sweetest of women! I'm mad, mad about you!"

With no more warning he lowered his head, fastening his lips to the curve of her throat; and discovered suddenly and definitely his error. In a twinkling it was a savage animal he held in his arms, and before he knew what was happening she had broken his grasp and he was reeling back with a head that rang from the impact of an open hand upon his ear.

"You shrew!" he chattered. "You infernal little vixen! And I thought--!"

He sprang toward her, beside himself, with a purpose that failed only through the intervention of a third party.

A man swinging suddenly round the end of the hedge shouldered between Lyttleton and the object of his rage--a man whose bulk, in the loose flannels of a lounge suit, seemed double that of Lyttleton.

"Oh, here!" said Trego impatiently, but without raising his voice. "Come, come!" He caught Lyttleton's wrists and forced them down. "Don't be an idiot--as well as a cad. Do you want to rouse the household? If you do, and get kicked out, you'll never get another chance on this island, my friend."

"Damn your impudence!" Lyttleton stuttered, sufficiently recalled to his senses to guard his tone, and wrenched at his wrists. "Let me go! I'll--"

"Sure I'll let you go," Trego agreed cheerfully. "But unless you want a thrashing in the presence of a lady, you'll do nothing foolish."

With this he released Mr. Lyttleton in such wise that he was an instant later picking himself up from the gravel path.

And while he was picking himself up he was also reflecting swiftly, this notwithstanding that Sally was no longer present to be a stay upon their brawling.

If his look was vicious, his tone was subdued as he stood brushing off the dust of his downfall.

"Lucky you came when you did," he said, with an effort to seem composed. "I presume I ought to thank you for knocking me about. This confounded temper of mine will get me into serious trouble yet if I'm not careful. I was driven pretty nearly wild by that little devil--"

"Cut it right there!" Trego interrupted sharply. "I don't know anything about your row--didn't hear a word that passed between you two--and it's none of my business. But if there's any blame to be borne, you'd better shoulder it yourself, for I warn you, I'm not going to hear any woman called names by a pup like you!"

And when her envelope was handed her and she had lifted the flap and withdrawn an oblong correspondence-card bearing the monogram A-G and nothing else, the final effect of meaningless mystery seemed to have been consummated.

But this, as it happened, was coincident with the arrival of the last two guests--one of whom was a lithe and shapely Harlequin in party-coloured tights, and the other a bewitchingly blond Columbine-- and then the purpose of the meeting was soon exposed.

With no more expression than she had employed in the case of Sally, Mrs. Gosnold saluted the last comers with a request to enter and be seated, then directed her maid to go out into the hall, close the door, and stand guard to prevent eavesdropping. When the door was closed she plunged directly into a prepared address.

"I owe every one an apology," she began with a fugitive, placating smile, "for all this inconvenience and nonsense--as it must seem. But I'm sure you will bear with me when you know the circumstances, which are extraordinary, and my motive, quite a natural one.

"We are now," she pursued with a swift glance that embraced the room, "just twenty-three, including myself; that is to say, everybody who slept here last night, and one or two more. And your masks are a sure screen for any betrayal of emotion when I tell you why I have asked you to oblige me by meeting here. So please retain them whatever happens."

She paused, made a little gesture of deprecation.

"I would rather almost anything than be obliged to say what I must.

"One of us," she announced deliberately, "is a thief. These rooms were entered some time last night, while I was asleep, and all my personal jewelry was stolen. Please no one interrupt. I will answer all the natural questions before I finish.

"The robbery was not difficult to accomplish."

"The Island is well-policed, there has not been a burglary in its history, and I am a careless old woman. When I take my things off at night I leave them on my dressing-table. Marie, my maid, puts them away in the morning. I have three large jewel-cases, none of which is ever locked except when I travel. I have never had a safe. The jewel-cases are stored away in unlocked dresser-drawers. My bedroom and boudoir doors are never locked. And I am a sound sleeper. There is--and was--nothing to prevent the thief from entering after I had turned out my light and, employing ordinary discretion, helping him or her self. Which is precisely what happened last night. Every piece of jewelry was taken from my dressing-table, and the three jewel-cases from their drawers."

"I discovered my loss promptly after waking up this morning. I said nothing, but after setting in motion the machinery for to-night's amusement, which I have long had in mind, devoted the day to a quiet investigation, as a result of which I am convinced that the house servants had no part in the robbery. In short, I am persuaded that the thief is now in this room. I do not, however, wish to know his or her identity. And I am especially anxious to avoid the scandal which must follow if this affair leaks out."

"Finally, I feel so sure you all share my horror of publicity and my aversion to knowing positively who committed this crime that I ask you all silently to pledge yourselves to secrecy--and then to humour my plan for regaining my jewels and covering up the affair completely. I have thought it might be accomplished this way:"

"Marie has given you each a card, an envelope, and a pencil. The cards and envelopes have no distinguishing marks. The pencils are all alike. The authorship of anything you may care to communicate cannot possibly be traced, if you will be careful not to write but to print."

"Please take the cards away with you to your rooms, and please each of you remain there at least five minutes before coming out. Then take the cards in the envelopes, sealed, down-stairs and deposit them in the mail-box. It will not be unlocked until one o'clock. By that time I shall expect the thief to have deposited my jewelry in some hiding-place about the house or grounds--a dozen will suggest themselves on a moment's thought--the spot to be indicated on the card. By this method ample time is granted in which to make restitution with complete immunity from recognition, the secret will be kept, the scandal hushed up, and, best of all, I shall be able to continue considering each and every one of you my very dear friend."

"But"--and her handsome old face darkened with the shadow of the determination that rang in her tone--"if this scheme should fail, and the thief refuse to make restitution, then, though it break my heart, I shall feel without alternative other than to take certain steps--steps which I cannot now contemplate without positive loathing, so repugnant are they to me. . . ."

"Now I have finished," Mrs. Gosnold said quietly. "I am sorry to have imposed in this way upon your patience, but it seemed, I think you'll grant me, warranted and necessary. I thank you, and hope you'll forgive me. And now will you please return to your rooms, without asking me any questions, and do as I have begged? And I sincerely hope that this wretched business may not interfere with your enjoyment to-night. For my part, I am so confident of the success of this scheme that I mean to consider that I have not been robbed--that everything is as it has always been, and as it will be after the envelopes are opened at one o'clock."

She ceased; there was the stir of a general rising and movement toward the door, amid a hum of excited murmurings.

Sally got up and went to a window which overlooked the driveway and lawn. Parting the curtains, she glanced out. The lawn was fair with moonlight, the driveway silver-blue, the woods behind dark and still. There was a closed car waiting at one side of the porte-cochere. The others--all those belonging to Gosnold House, as well as those of guests for the fete--were hidden among the trees bordering the road or parked in the open spaces around the garage and stables at a considerable remove from the house.

There was no one to be seen on the lawn or drive, no hurrying figure cloaked in Quaker grey.

After some minutes of fruitless watching Sally ventured doubtfully: "What time is it?"

"Ten past one, miss."

"Nearly half an hour--"

"Yes, miss."

"Do you think Mrs. Gosnold would mind if you went to make sure she was all right?"

"I don't know, Miss Manwaring. She doesn't like interference, if I may make so bold as to say so."

A little later, however, the woman added tentatively: "I wouldn't care to take the responsibility, myself, of going to see."

"But if I order you to go--"

"Yes, miss," Marie smiled.

"Then I do order you to go. But don't be long."

"No, miss."

Sally waited in a mood of constantly increasing anxiety. It was absurd to think that anything untoward could have happened to Mrs. Gosnold on her own grounds, meeting her own nephew for a clandestine talk. And of course she might have learned something from Savage which had induced her, for her own ends, to maintain her masquerade for a longer time. She was quite possibly somewhere on the terrace or in the formal garden.

Marie was back within five minutes, wearing an apprehensive countenance.

"There's nobody out back, miss, near the road, where she said she was to meet Mr. Savage, and I asked Thomas and some of the waiters, and they all said they hadn't seen her."

"But in my costume and masked . . ."

"It's past one, miss, already, and everybody has unmasked."

"To be sure. I'm going to my room and get into another dress. Then I'll look round for her myself."

"If you'll be so kind, miss--without letting on--"

"Of course."

"Mrs. Gosnold would be very indignant if any mistake was made."

Sally caught her cloak tightly about her, and because of its unconventionality as a costume, resumed her mask against the chance of meeting anybody in her passage through the corridor to the far wing of the building.

She fairly ran in her impatience, and through this haste was brought to the head of the main staircase at the precise moment when an unmasked Harlequin was about to set foot upon the upper landing.

Mr. Savage was smiling quietly to himself and slapping his calves lightly with his lath-sword; nothing in his manner excused the suspicion that he was not perfectly satisfied with himself and all his circumstances.

Somewhat reassured by the vision of this amiable countenance, Sally paused, and won a glance of quizzical inquiry, with especial application to the mask which she still wore in defiance of the rule.

But when she spoke in her natural voice that look was erased from the features of Mr. Savage as chalk-marks may be erased from a blackboard.

"Oh, Mr. Savage, if you please--"

"Wha-at!" the man ejaculated blankly, stopping short and dropping his make-believe weapon.

"I'm looking for Mrs. Gosnold. Have you seen her anywhere about?"

"Mrs. Gos--! Aunt Abby!" He choked and gasped. "But you--who are you?"

"I thought you must know my voice."

Sally removed her mask, and incontinently Savage fell back against the banister-rail and grasped it for support.

"Miss Manvers! But--what--how the devil did you get back here?"

"I haven't been out."

She pulled up on the verge of frank explanation; it was quite possible that Mrs. Gosnold might furiously resent betrayal of her stratagem. And yet Savage's look of pure fright only augmented Sally's solicitude for her employer.

"You haven't been out! But ten minutes ago--out there--behind the trees--"

She shook her head and tried to smile a superior sort of a smile: "It wasn't I who met you."

The man made a gesture of hopeless confusion, and she could not but remark his surprising loss of colour. Suddenly he stepped to her side and seized her roughly by the arm.

"Then who was it'?" he demanded furiously. "If it wasn't you--who then? Damn it, you'd better tell me--!"

"Let go my arm!" she demanded with a flash of temper that was instantly respected. "If you must know," she went on, reckless at consequences, "it was your aunt who met and talked to you out there. Don't you understand? She borrowed my costume and went to meet you in my place."

"Oh, my God!"

Savage was now chalky pale. He seemed to strive, to say more, but failed for the constriction of his throat. For another instant he stared incredulously, then, without a word of explanation or apology, he turned and flung himself headlong down the steps!

Before reaching the middle landing, however, he checked himself on the reflection that he must avoid attracting attention, and went on more slowly, if still with many a symptom of nervous haste.

At the bottom he turned aside and was quickly lost in, the crowd.

Unable to pursue, dressed as she was, Sally went on to her room in a mood of dark perplexity.

Surely it would seem that Savage must have been engaged in some very damnable business indeed, and have given himself away irremediably to Mrs. Gosnold, thinking her Sally, to exhibit such unmitigated consternation on discovery of his error.

But what could it have been? Sally could imagine nothing in their admittedly singular relations which, being disclosed to the aunt, should so completely confound the nephew.

Mrs. Gosnold had suggested no insufferable resentment of the deception practised upon her, when informed of it by Sally. And why, therefore, Mr. Savage should comport himself as if the heavens had fallen on learning that he had betrayed himself unconsciously to his aunt, was something that passed Sally's comprehension.

And the strange flavour of the affair alarmed her: first, Mrs. Gosnold's unexplained (but, after all, not inexplicable) failure to return to her room on time; then this panic of Savage's.

It was patently the girl's immediate business to find one or the other or both of them and make sure that nothing was radically wrong after all.

By happy chance her very prettiest evening frock didn't hook up the back; she was able to struggle into it not only without assistance, but within a very few minutes.

Then, scurrying back to Mrs. Gosnold's room, she read in the apprehensive eyes of the maid, even before this last could speak, the news that the mistress was still missing, and so, darting down-stairs, began industriously to search the house and grounds.

By this hour few signs were wanting that the festival was on its wane; already cars were arriving and departing, laden with the very youngest and the oldest people; there was perceptibly more room on the dancing-floor of the veranda, which was populated chiefly by the younger set; in the supper-room the more rowdy crowd hung on with numbers undiminished and enthusiasm unabated if liberally dampened; about the grounds there was far less movement, far more lingering in sequestered nooks and shadows. Ecstatica, for one, had folded her tent, liberated her black cat to the life of a convinced misogynist, and vanished into the shades of night.

But nowhere was any sign to be found of anyone of those three whom Sally sought--Mrs. Gosnold or Savage or, failing these, Mrs. Standish.

Now when she had nearly completed one exhaustive round of the grounds and was wondering where next to turn, with neither warning nor expectation she came around one end of a screen of shrubbery and stopped just short of surprising another sentimental tableau, staged in the identical setting used for Mr. Trego's declaration and cast with a change of but one mummer.

And in the instant marked by recognition of that selfsame marble seat commanding that same view of silvered sea and bathed in the light of that same heartless moon, Sally seemed to hear the echo of her destiny's sardonic laughter.

The gentleman was Mr. Trego, the lady Mrs. Artemas; and they were ignorant of Sally's observation for the simple reason that Mr. Trego's back was toward her and the head of Mrs. Artemas was pillowed on his shoulder--her arms white bonds around his neck.

And as if this were not enough, Sally's discovery of them anticipated by the barest moment the appearance of another couple around the farther end of the clump of shrubbery--two people who happened to be husband and wife and known to Sally as recent additions to the house-party.

These, too, stopped sharply and would have considerately withdrawn but for the fact that, standing as he did, Trego could not help seeing them. He spoke a word, presumably, in the ear so near his lips. The woman swung away in a twinkling, breaking from his arms but retaining one of his hands, and faced the two with a little excited laugh that sounded almost hysterical; and Sally noted that her eyes were bright with tears--of happiness, of course.

"Oh!" she cried, laughing and confused, "is it you, Mrs. Warrenden? No, please don't run. It's too late now--isn't it--when you've caught us in the act! You and Mr. Warrenden will be the first to know of our happiness . . ."

Sally heard no more. The scene vanished from her vision as if the moonlight had been extinguished. It was some moments before she realised that she was running madly, as if hoping flight might help her exorcise that ironic vision. But when she did realise what she was doing, she but ran the faster; let people think what they would; she no longer cared; their esteem no more mattered, for she was finished with them one and all--yes, even with Mrs. Gosnold!

Blindly instinct led her back to her room, again via that side door.

She flung tempestuously into its friendly darkness, locked herself in, and dropped, spent and racked, upon the edge of the bed, clenching her hands into two hard, tight fists, gritting her teeth, and fighting with all her strength to keep back the storm that threatened of sobs and tears and nervous laughter.

It wasn't as if she had really cared for the man--it was worse. It was the sum of all the blows her poor, struggling pride had suffered in the course of the last twenty-four hours, beginning with her awakening to the worthlessness of Lyttleton and realisation of the low esteem in which he held her, and culminating in this facer from one whose love she had refused but none the less prized for the comfort it gave her.

Nor was this all. In addition to the writhings of an exacerbated vanity, she was conscious of a sense of personal loss, as if a landmark had been razed in the perspective of her life. In spite of those faults and shortcomings, so unduly emphasised through the man's own deliberate intent and so inexcusable in one who appreciated so well what was expected of a man in his position, Sally had subconsciously from the very first felt Trego to be one whose faith and loyalty were as a rock, whose friendship might be counted upon as an enduring tower of refuge.

And to have him go from her, protesting passionate patience, leaving her exalted with the consciousness that she was wanted--to have him go thus from her and straightway fall into the trap which Mrs. Artemas unaffectedly baited--the trap of which he had not once but many times obliquely alluded to in half-humorous, half-genuine terms of fear--it was, or seemed to be, intolerable.

The waves of burning emotion that swept and scorched her were alternately of rage and chagrin.

Granted the opportunity, she could easily conceive herself as dealing very vigorously with the mantrap.

Some one rattled the knob of her door. Startled, Sally jumped up, and with her wadded handkerchief dabbed hastily and superfluously at her eyes, which were quite dry as yet.

She did not answer, but eyed apprehensively the dark recess in which the door was set at the end of her unlighted room.

A knock followed the noise of the knob. Still she hesitated to reply. Uncertainly she moved toward the nearest wall-sconce and lifted her hand to the switch. She was sadly confused and unstrung, her thoughts awhirl and nerves ajangle. The last thing she wished just then was to meet and talk to anybody.

Still it might be Mrs. Gosnold or her messenger. And that lady was Sally's one remaining friend on earth. She swallowed hard, took herself firmly in hand, and when the knock was repeated was able to answer in a tolerably even voice:

"Well? Who is it?"

"Miss Manwaring, are you there?" Heartfelt relief informed the voice of Mrs. Standish. "Please let me in. I must speak with you immediately."

Sullenly, without replying, Sally turned on the light, moved to the door, unlocked and opened it.

"Come in," she said ungraciously.

Mrs. Standish swept in, gay crimson domino over fluffy skirts and slim, pink legs assorting oddly with the agitation betrayed by her unsmiling eyes, her pallor accentuating the rouge on her cheeks like rose-petals against snow.

"Thank God!" she whispered, "I've found you at last. I've looked everywhere for the last half-hour. This is the second time I've been here. You just got in, of course. Where have you been?"

"Does it matter?" Sally fenced, maintaining a stony countenance. "I mean, I don't think it does, now you've run me to earth at last. What's the trouble?"

"You haven't seen Walter'? He hasn't told you?"

"No; I tried to speak to him half an hour ago, but he ran from me as if I were a ghost!"

"You know why!" The woman's voice trembled with restrained rage. "You impossible girl! Why, why did you let Aunt Abby go to meet him instead of you? It was fatal, it was criminal. Of course, he gave the whole show away to her, never guessing. Now it's all up with us; we'll never be asked here again; and the chances are she'll cut us out of her will as well. Why did you do it? Oh, I could shake you!"

"I know well you would if you could," Sally admitted calmly. "Only-better not try."

"But why--?"

"Well, if you must know, Mrs. Gosnold overheard you three plotting together out there just before I came on the scene. She was at the window overhead, listening through the shutters. I don't know what you were talking about--she didn't tell me--but it was enough to make her insist on my giving her my costume so that she might go and hear the rest of it."

Mrs. Standish bit her lip. And her eyes shifted uneasily from Sally's face.

"You haven't seen her since--"

"No," Sally answered bluntly. "Have you?"

"No. Walter and I have both been looking for her as well as you. That's why he ran when he knew about this terrible mistake; he wanted to find her and set things straight if he could. But she"--the woman stumbled and her eyes shifted again--"she's gone and hidden herself--plotting our humiliation and punishment, I dare say. I only wish I knew. Walter is still hunting everywhere for her. See here: I presume you understand you've got to go now?"

"Why?"

"For one good reason--if what has happened isn't enough to persuade you--because there will be a man here from New York by the first boat--seven o'clock to-morrow morning--with a warrant for the arrest of Sarah Manvers."

"Are you telling the truth, Mrs. Standish?"

"How dare you! No, I won't let you make me lose my temper with your insolence. The matter is too serious, and I've no wish to see you suffer, even if you have ruined everything for us. You must listen to me, Miss Manvers: be advised and go. I don't know what put them on your trail, what made them suspect you were here, but the burglary-insurance people had the warrant sworn out yesterday afternoon and started a man up by the evening boat. Walter got a telegram to that effect about ten o'clock. That's what he wanted to say to you--that, and to give you some money and directions for getting away."

"But why should I leave?"

"Do you want to go to jail?"

"Not much. But I don't see why I need. You can easily explain that my things in the bath-room were left there with your knowledge at the time when you took pity on me and gave me a change of clothing to travel in."

"It's too late. If we had explained it that way, to begin with, it would have been all right. But neither of us thought. And Walter bungled things frightfully in New York. Now if we come forward with any such story they'll think we're all in a conspiracy to defraud the company."

"Oh!" Sally exclaimed abruptly, with an accent of enlightenment that discountenanced the older woman.

With an effort, recovering, she sought to distract the girl.

"Surely you must see now, you have got to go! There's a boat to the mainland at six thirty. If you catch that, you'll have three hours' start; for the detective won't be able to get off the island before half past nine. And you ought to be able to lose yourself in that time somehow. Hurry; I'll help you pack a satchel. You'd better wear that blue serge; everybody wears blue serge, so it's inconspicuous. And here's some money for travelling expenses."

Sally ignored the little fold of bills held out to her.

"I'm not going," she declared firmly.

"Are you mad?"

"I would be to go with the situation what it is here. Don't you see that, unless those jewels are returned to Mrs. Gosnold to-night--yes, I mean the jewels you were so ready to accuse me of stealing a little while ago; but you seem to have forgotten that now--"

"I wish you would," Mrs. Standish replied, schooling her voice to accents of dulcet entreaty. "I was beside myself with anxiety--"

"Wait. If I go before those jewels are recovered--disappear, as you want me to--it will be equivalent to a confession that I myself stole them. And suppose I did."

"What!"

"I say, suppose I did, for the sake of argument. What right have you to assume that I didn't commit the theft? No more than you had to accuse me as you did. And until the theft is made good, what right have you to let me go and, possibly, get away with my loot? No!" Sally shook her head. "You're not logical, you're not honest with me. There's something behind all this. I'm not going to be made a scapegoat for you. I'm not going to run away now and hide simply to further your plans for swindling the burglary-insurance company. I'll see Mrs. Gosnold and advise with her before I stir a step."

"Oh, you are insufferable!" Mrs. Standish cried.

In a flash she lost control of her temper altogether. Her face grew ghastly with the pallor of her rage. And she trembled visibly.

But what else she might have said to the defiant girl was cut short by the sudden and unceremonious opening of the door to admit three persons.

The first and last of these were Mercedes Pride and Mr. Lyttleton. Between them entered a man unknown to Sally--a hard-featured citizen in very ordinary business clothing, cold of eye, uncompromising of manner.

Jubilation glowed in the witch's glance; anticipative relish of the flavour of triumph lent her voice a shriller note. She struck an attitude, singling out Sally with a denunciatory arm.

"There she is! That's the woman who calls herself Sara Manwaring. Now arrest her--make her confess what she's done with those jewels--pack her off to jail!"

It might seem ungrateful to Mrs. Gosnold; Sally couldn't help that, though she was sincerely sorry; the association simply must be discontinued.

And that, she declared in her solitude, was all there was about it. . . .

By the time she had succeeded in composing a note which seemed sufficiently grateful in tone to excuse the pitiful inadequacy of her excuse for absconding--that she was "out of her element" on the Island, an outsider, a Nobody, and didn't "belong" and never could--the chill light of early dawn had rendered the electrics garish.

She read the note over with hypercritical sensitiveness to its defects, but decided that it must do. Besides, she had used the last sheet of note-paper in the rack on her desk; more was not obtainable without a trip to the living-room. Then in desperation she appended, under the sign of the venerable P. S., a prayer that this might prove acceptable in lieu of more gracious leave-taking, addressed the envelope to Mrs. Gosnold, and left it sticking conspicuously in the frame of her dressing-mirror.

Studiously she reduced her travelling gear to the simplest requisites; the hand-bag she took because she had a use for it, nothing less than to serve as a cover for the return of everything she wore.

She was determined to go out of this Island world, whose ether was too rare for her vulgar lungs, with no more than she had brought into it.

At length the laggard hands of the clock were close together on the figure 6.

She rose, let herself out of the room, and by way of that memorable side door issued forth into a morning as rarely beautiful as ever that blessed Island knew. It made renunciation doubly difficult. Yet Sally did not falter or once look back.

Her way to the village wharf was shortest by the beach. None saw her steal through the formal garden (with eyes averted from that one marble seat which was forever distinguished from all others in the world) and vanish over the lip of the cliff by way of its long, zigzag stairway. Few noticed her as she debouched from the beach into the village streets; her dress was inconspicuous, her demeanour even more than retiring.

Her hope was favoured in that on this earlier trip of the boat there were few passengers other than natives of the Island.

On the mainland she caught an accommodation train which wound a halting way through the morning and set her down in Providence late in the forenoon. Then ignorance of railroad travel made her choose another accommodation instead of an express which would have cost no more and landed her in New York an hour earlier.

Her flight was financed by a few dollars left over from her bridge winnings of the first day at Gosnold House after subsequent losses had been paid. Their sum no more than sufficed; when she had purchased a meagre lunch at the station counter in New Haven she was penniless again; but for the clothes she wore she landed in New York even as she had left it.

The city received her with a deafening roar that seemed of exultation that its prey had been delivered unto it again.

The heat was even more oppressive than that of the day on which she had left--or perhaps seemed so by contrast with the radiant coolness of the Island air.

Avoiding Park Avenue, she sought the place that she called home by way of Lexington.

She went slowly, wearily, lugging her half-empty hand-hag as if it were a heavy burden.

At length, leaving the avenue, she paused a few doors west of the corner, climbed the weather-bitten steps to the brownstone entrance, and addressed herself to those three long flights of naked stairs.

The studio door at the top was closed and locked. The card had been torn from the tacks that held it to the panel.

Puzzled and anxious, she stopped and turned up a corner of the worn fibre mat--and sighed with relief to find the key in its traditional hiding-place.

But when she let herself in, it was to a room tenanted solely by seven howling devils of desolation.

Only the decrepit furniture remained; it had not been worth cartage or storage; every personal belonging of the other two girls had disappeared; Mary Warden had not left so much as a sheet of music, Lucy Spade had overlooked not so much as a hopeless sketch.

Yet Sally had no cause for complaint; they had forsaken her less indifferently than she had them; one or the other had left a newspaper, now three days old, propped up where she could not fail to see it on the antiquated marble mantel-shelf. In separate columns on the page folded outermost two items were encircled with rings of crimson water-colour.

One, under the caption "News of Plays and Players," noted the departure for an opening in Atlantic City of the musical comedy company of whose chorus Mary Warden was a member.

The other, in the column headed "Marriages," announced tersely the nuptials of Lucy Spode and Samuel W. Meyerick. No details were given.

Forlornly Sally wandered to the windows and opened them to exchange the hot air of the studio for the hotter air of the back yards.

Then slowly she set about picking up the threads of her life.

Such clothing as she owned offered little variety for choice. She selected the least disreputable of two heavy, black winter skirts, a shirt-waist badly torn at the collar-band, her severely plain under-clothing, coarse black stockings, and shoes that had been discarded as not worth another visit to the cobbler's.

When these had been exchanged for the gifts of Mrs. Standish, Sally grimly packed the latter into the hand-bag and shut the latch upon them with a snap of despair.

Come evening, when it was dark enough, she would leave them at the door of the residence up the street, ring the bell, and run.

She sat out a long hour, hands listless in her lap, staring vacantly out at that well-hated vista of grimy back yards, drearily reviewing the history of the last five days. She felt as one who had dreamed a dream and was not yet sure that she had waked.

Later she roused to the call of hunger, and foraged in the larder, or what served the studio as such, turning up a broken carton of Uneeda Biscuit and half a packet of black tea. There was an egg, but she prudently refrained from testing it. . . .

It never entered her weary head to imagine that the feet that pounded heavily on the stairs were those of anybody but the janitor; she was wondering idly whether there were rent due, and if she would be turned out into the street that very night; and was thinking it did not much matter, when the footfalls stopped on the threshold of the studio and she looked up into the face of Mr. Trego.

Surprise and indignation smote her with speechlessness, but her eyes were eloquent enough as she started up--and almost overturned the rickety table at which she had been dining.

But he was crassly oblivious of her emotion. Removing his hat, he mopped his brow, sighed, and smiled winningly.

"Hello!" he said. "You certainly did give me a deuce of a hunt. I wormed it out of Mrs. Gosnold that you inhabited a studio somewhere on this block, and I suppose I must have climbed thirty times three flights of stairs in the last hour."

She demanded in a low, tense voice: "Why have you followed me here?"

"Well," he protested, "Mrs. Gosnold sent me--and if she hadn't, I would have come anyway. I told you last night that I loved you. I haven't changed since then. And now that you're in a fix, whether or not of your own contriving--well, it isn't my notion of love to let you pull out for yourself if you'll let me help. And that goes, even if you stick to it that you won't marry me."

"And Mrs. Artemas?" she inquired icily. "What does she think about your coming after me?"

He stared and laughed. "Oh, did you know about that? I hoped you didn't."

"I saw you with her in your arms."

"Yes," he agreed patiently. "She'd been laying for me for several weeks. I told you she was--don't you remember? Only, of course, I didn't name her. And last night, when I went back there looking for you, she cornered me; and while I was trying to be nice and explain I could never be anything more than a brother to her she began to blubber and threw herself into my arms and . . . What could a fellow do? I tried to make her behave, but before she would listen to reason those confounded people had to pop up. And, of course, she took advantage of that opening instanter. But--great Scott!--you didn't suppose I was going to be that sort of a gentleman and let her get away with it, did you? when I am so much in love with you I can hardly keep from grabbing you now! Not likely!"

She tried to answer him, but her traitorous voice broke, and before she could master it he had resumed.

"Mrs. Gosnold wants you back--sent me to say so--says she'll come after you if I fail to bring you."

"Oh, no!" she protested, trembling uncontrollably.

"You won't meet any of those folks. They're all going to-day. It's a new deal from a fresh deck, so to speak."

"No," she averred more steadily. "You told me I was foolish; you were right. I'm through with all that."

He came closer to her. "You needn't be," he said. "Don't damn Society just because you got in wrong at the first attempt. Try again. Let me try with you. I've got all the money there is, more or less. If you want a villa at Newport--"

"Oh, please, no! I tell you, I'm finished with all that forever."

"Well," he grinned fatuously, "what about a flat in Harlem?"

A little smile broke through her tears.

"Why must you go to such extremes?" she laughed brokenly. "Aren't there any more apartments to be had on Riverside Drive?"

THE END

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