et him in the house now," Herbert advised.

"What will we tell them?" Margie asked.

Herbert looked at Isabelle, then he swept them all with a chieftain's
glance, and remarked:

"Tommy fell into the pool, an' nearly drownded himself. Get me?"

They nodded.

"Make a stretcher with crossed hands."

His men obeyed.

"Now, you girls, move him onto our hands."

They all worked except Isabelle, who never moved.

"Quit. I want to walk," said Tommy.

"All right, Tommy. You fell into the pool."

"I did not," said Tommy.

"Yes, you did, and if you leave it to us, we'll square it so you won't
get licked," Herbert promised.

The stretcher men rose and bore the hero off toward the house, followed
by the children, all except Isabelle. Her breath came in agonized gasps.
As they disappeared she threw herself down on her face and let her
nerves have full sway. She did not cry tears, but her body shook in a
nervous storm of excitement, and misery. She did not hear the swift feet
that approached, she scarcely heard Herbert's embarrassed voice saying:

"Say, Isabelle, it's all right. The chambermaid put him to bed and
telephoned his mother to send him some clothes."

She raised her tragic face to him.

"Will the police take me?" she whispered.

Without meaning to do so at all, Herbert dropped down beside her.

"You didn't kill him. He's all right," he repeated.

Then as a nervous tremor shook her body, he patted her, awkwardly.

"You're all right, Isabelle, it was just an accident," he comforted
her.

She shook her head, and the tears came. Herbert leaned over and planted
a kiss under her right ear. She stopped crying. He did not know what
more to say, so he just sat by. In that half hour of self-accusation, of
reaction from terror, of the consciousness of the sympathy of a friend
who had saved her from the police, Isabelle closed the chapter of
childhood and stepped over into young girlhood.

CHAPTER TEN

During the next few years of Isabelle's life she was more of a trial to
her household than ever before, if such a thing were possible. She
overplayed the tomboy, just as she did every role she essayed.

From the moment Herbert Hunter came to her rescue in the affair of Tommy
Page, he was exalted to the highest pedestal in her temple of worship.
Boys knew what loyalty meant. Her hero had forced all the witnesses on
that occasion to keep absolute silence about it--with pol