en stimulant, and a large box of cigarettes in his
pocket, suspecting my deprivation.

"Well," he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep after keeping me up half
the night?"

I slid my hand around: the purse was well covered. "Have it now, or wait
till I get the cork out?" he rattled on.

"I don't want anything," I protested. "I wish you wouldn't be so darned
cheerful, Richey." He stopped whistling to stare at me.

"'I am saddest when I sing!'" he quoted unctuously. "It's pure reaction,
Lollie. Yesterday the sky was low: I was digging for my best friend.
To-day--he lies before me, his peevish self. Yesterday I thought the
notes were burned: to-day--I look forward to a good cross-country chase,
and with luck we will draw." His voice changed suddenly. "Yesterday--she
was in Seal Harbor. To-day--she is here."

"Here in Washington?" I asked, as naturally as I could.

"Yes. Going to stay a week or two."

"Oh, I had a little hen and she had a wooden leg
And nearly every morning she used to lay an egg--"

"Will you stop that racket, Rich! It's the real thing this time, I
suppose?"

"She's the best little chicken that we have on the farm
And another little drink won't do us any harm--"

he finished, twisting out the corkscrew. Then he came over and sat down
on the bed.

"Well," he said judicially, "since you drag it from me, I think perhaps
it is. You--you're such a confirmed woman-hater that I hardly knew how
you would take it."

"Nothing of the sort," I denied testily. "Because a man reaches the age
of thirty without making maudlin love to every--"

"I've taken to long country rides," he went on reflectively, without
listening to me, "and yesterday I ran over a sheep; nearly went into the
ditch. But there's a Providence that watches over fools and lovers, and
just now I know darned well that I'm one, and I have a sneaking idea I'm
both."

"You are both," I said with disgust. "If you can be rational for one
moment, I wish you would tell me why that man Sullivan called me over
the telephone yesterday morning."

"Probably hadn't yet discovered the Bronson notes--providing you hold to
your theory that the theft was incidental to the murder. May have wanted
his own clothes again, or to thank you for yours. Search me: I can't
think of anything else." The doctor came in just then.

As I said before, I think a lot of my doctor--when I am ill. He is a
young man, with an air of breezy self-confiden