im, noticing that the statement of
the weather for May 31 remained at the foot of the last page left, while
a run-over on the page beyond the missing ones had been marked out. It
had nothing to do with the weather. As nearly as I could make out with
the reading glass I held over it, the words were, "take the woman for no
other than she appears."

"Worth," I urged, "give me your attention for a minute here. You say
your father did not make corrections, but one of the diaries is cut. The
records of two days are gone. Were those pages stolen?"

"How should I know?" said Worth, and added, helpfully, "Pity they didn't
steal the whole lot. That would have been a relief."

There were voices and the sound of steps outside. I shoved the diary
back into its place on the shelf, and turned to see Barbara at the
broken door with Jim Edwards. She came in, her clear eyes a little wide,
but the whole young personality of her quite composed. Edwards halted at
the door, a haggard eye roving over the room, until it encountered the
blood-stain on the rug, when it sheered abruptly, and fixed itself on
Worth, who crossed to shake hands, with a quiet,

"Come in, won't you, Jim? Or would you rather go up to the house?"

Keenly I watched the man as he stood there struggling for words. There
was color on his thin cheeks, high under the dark eyes; it made him look
wild. The chill of the drive, or pure nervousness, had him shaking.

"Thank you--the house, I think," he said rather incoherently. Yet he
lingered. "Barbara's been telling me," he said in that deep voice of his
with the air of one who utters at random. "Worth,--had you thought that
it might have been happening down here, right at the time we all sat at
Tait's together?"

He was in a condition to spill anything. A moment more and we should
have heard what it was that had him in such a grip of horror. But as I
glanced at Worth, I saw him reply to the older man's question with a
very slight but very perceptible shake of the head. It had nothing to do
with what had been asked him; to any eye it said more plainly than
words, "Don't talk; pull yourself together." I whirled to see how
Edwards responded to this, and found our group had a new member. In the
door stood a decent looking, round faced Chinaman. Edwards had drawn a
little inside the threshold for him, but very little, and waited, still
shaken, perturbed, hat in hand, apparently ready to leave as soon as the
Oriental got out of