dark-eyed girl, with a shudder, "my--my
poor car."

"And my poor brother," snapped out Peggy, indignantly, "if it hadn't been
for your stupid idea of racing this wouldn't have happened. I just knew
we'd have an accident."

"It's too bad," repeated Fanning, "but can't I do something?"

"Yes, get me some water. There's a brook a little way down this road.
You'll find a tin cup under the rear seat in our machine."

Fanning, perhaps glad to escape Peggy's righteous anger, hastened off on
the errand. Regina flounced down on a stone by the roadside and moaned.

"Oh, this is fearful. Why can't we get a doctor? Oh, my poor car. It will
never be the same again."

"Nonsense," said Peggy, sharply, "it can easily be repaired. But you don't
think I'm worrying about your car now, do you?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," quavered Regina, "I know it's all terrible. Is
your brother badly hurt?"

"No. Fortunately he only has this cut in his head and a broken ankle. It
might have been far worse."

Regina wandered away. Somehow she felt that Peggy had taken a sudden
dislike to her. She sauntered toward the car. Suddenly she stopped and her
large eyes grew larger. In the middle of the road, just as they had been
hurled from Roy's pocket, lay a side-comb studded with brilliants and an
old battered wallet.

"Oh!" cried the girl, with an exclamation that was half a sob, "oh, what
good fortune. So he was keeping that as evidence against me, eh? Well,
perhaps this accident was providential, after all."

She picked up the comb and then turned her attention to the wallet. Giving
a quick glance around to see that she was unobserved the girl plunged her
white fingers into the pocket case. They encountered something crisp and
crackly. She drew the object out.

"A twenty-dollar bill!" she exclaimed wonderingly, "and nothing else. I
wonder if this can have anything to do with----."

She was turning it over curiously as she spoke. Suddenly a red spot flamed
up in her either cheek.

"It's marked with a red round O," she exclaimed, "what a bit of evidence.
So Master Roy Prescott, you were planning to unmask me by that side-comb,
were you? Well, I shall play the same trick on you with this bill."

Fanning Harding was coming back at that moment with the cup full of water.
The girl checked him with an excited gesture.

"Fortune has played into our hands," she cried, "look here!"

"Well, what is it?" asked Fanning, rather testily.

"This bi