the integers of which he was not responsible. He hesitated, and then
propounded over the balusters to the upper story the direct query--

"You don't happen to have Nellie Wynn up there, do ye?"

There was an interval of inquiry proceeding from half a dozen reluctant
throats, more or less cottony and muffled, in those various degrees
of grievance and mental distress which indicate too early roused
young womanhood. The eventual reply seemed to be affirmative, albeit
accompanied with a suppressed giggle, as if the young lady had just been
discovered as an answer to an amusing conundrum.

"All right," said Wynn, with an apparent accession of boisterous
geniality. "Tell her I must see her, and I've only got a few minutes to
spare. Tell her to slip on anything and come down; there's no one here
but myself, and I've shut the front door on Brother Burnham. Ha, ha!"
and suiting the action to the word, he actually bundled the admiring
Brother Burnham out on his own doorstep. There was a light pattering on
the staircase, and Nellie Wynn, pink with sleep, very tall, very slim,
hastily draped in a white counterpane with a blue border and a general
classic suggestion, slipped into the parlor. At the same moment her
father shut the door behind her, placed one hand on the knob, and with
the other seized her wrist.

"Where were you yesterday?" he asked.

Nellie looked at him, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Here."

"You were in the Carquinez Woods with Low Dorman; you went there in
disguise; you've met him there before. He is your clandestine lover; you
have taken pledges of affection from him; you have--"

"Stop!" she said.

He stopped.

"Did he tell you this?" she asked, with an expression of disdain.

"No; I overheard it. Dunn and Brace were at the house waiting for you.
When the coach did not bring you, I went to the office to inquire. As I
left our door I thought I saw somebody listening at the parlor windows.
It was only a drunken Mexican muleteer leaning against the house; but
if HE heard nothing, I did. Nellie, I heard Brace tell Dunn that he had
tracked you in your disguise to the woods--do you hear? that when you
pretended to be here with the girls you were with Low--alone; that you
wear a ring that Low got of a trader here; that there was a cabin in the
woods--"

"Stop!" she repeated.

Wynn again paused.

"And what did YOU do?" she asked.

"I heard they were starting down there to surprise you and him toge