give it up? Judge Wilton has
asked me twice, out of politeness, not to give it up. Are you merely
being polite?"

She smiled, looking tired, and shook her head.

"Really, Mr. Hastings, if you were to desert us now, I should be
desperate--altogether. Desperate! Just that."

"I can't desert you," he said gently. "As I told Mr. Webster, I know too
little and I suspect too much to do that."

Before she spoke again, she looked at him intently, drawing in her under
lip a little against her teeth.

"What, Mr. Hastings?" she asked, then. "What do you suspect?"

"Let me answer that with a question," he suggested. "Last night, your
one idea was that I could protect you and your father, everybody in the
house here, by acting as your spokesman. I think you wanted to set me up
as a buffer between all of you on the one side and the authorities and
the reporters on the other. You wanted things kept down, nothing to get
out beyond that which was unavoidable. Wasn't that it?"

"Yes; it was," she admitted, not seeing where his question led.

"You were afraid, then, that something incriminating might be divulged,
weren't you?"

"Oh, no!" she denied instantly.

"I mean something which might seem incriminating. You trusted the person
whom it would seem to incriminate; and you wanted time for the murderer
to be found without, in the meantime, having the adverse circumstance
made public. Isn't that it, Miss Sloane?"

"Yes--practically."

"Let's be clear on that. Your fear was that too much questioning of you
or the other person might result in a slip-up--might make you or him
mention the apparently damaging incident, with disastrous effect. Wasn't
that it?"

"Yes; that was it."

"Now, what was that apparently incriminating incident?"

She started. He had brought her so directly to the confession that she
saw now the impossibility of withholding what he sought.

"It may be," he tried to lighten her responsibility, "the very thing
that Webster and the judge have concealed--for I'm sure they're keeping
something back. Perhaps, if I knew it, things would be easier. People
closely affected by a crime are the last to judge such things
accurately."

She gave a long breath of relief, looking at him with perplexity
nevertheless.

"Yes--I know. That was why I came to you--last night--in the beginning."

"And it was about them, Webster and Wilton," he drew the conclusion for
her, still encouraging her with his smile, regarding