ssion.

"She must take that money," he declared with great emphasis. "She must!"

"And you think she will?"

"Miss Sloane, I know she will," he said, a fatherly encouragement in his
voice. "I'm seldom mistaken in people; and I know I've judged this woman
correctly. Money's her weakness. Love of it has destroyed her already.
Offering this bribe to anybody else situated as she is would be
ridiculous--but she--she'll take it."

Lucille sat a long time on the verandah after Hastings had gone. She was
far more depressed than he had suspected; she had to endure so much, she
thought--the suspense, which grew heavier as time went by; the
notoriety; Berne Webster still in danger of his life; her father's
inexplicable pose of indifference toward everything; the suspicions of
the newspapers and the public of both her father and Berne; and the
waiting, waiting, waiting--for what?

A little moan escaped her.

What if Mrs. Brace did take the marked money? What would that show? That
she was acting with criminal intent, Hastings had said. But he had
another and more definite object in urging her to this undertaking; he
expected from it a vital development which he had not explained--she was
sure. She worried with that idea.

Her confidence in Hastings had been without qualification. But what was
he doing? Anything? Judge Wilton was forever saying, "Trust Hastings;
he's the man for this case." And that was his reputation; people
declared that, if anybody could get to the bottom of all this mystery,
he could. Yet, two whole days had passed since the murder, and he had
just said another week might be required to work out his plan of
detection--whatever that plan was.

Another week of this! She put her hot palms to her hotter temples,
striving for clarity of thought. But she was dazed by her terror--her
isolated terror, for some of her thoughts were such that she could share
them with nobody--not even Hastings.

"If the sheriff makes no arrest within the next few days, I'll be out of
the woods," he had told her. "Delay is what I want."

There, again, was discouragement, for here was the sheriff threatening
to serve a warrant on Berne within the next twenty-four hours! She had
heard Crown make the threat, and to her it had seemed absolutely final:
unless her father revealed something which Crown wanted, whether her
father knew it or not, Berne was to be subjected to this humiliation,
this added blow to his chance for recovery!