orners of her
desk, searching upon the floor, upon the chairs, everywhere, anywhere;
her face crimson, her breath failing her, her hands opening and
shutting.

But the silver heart with its crown of worn gold was not to be found.
Laura, at the end of half an hour, was obliged to give over searching.
She was certain the match box lay upon the mahogany table when last she
left the room. It had not been mislaid; of that she was now persuaded.

But while she sat at the desk, still in habit and hat, rummaging for
the fourth time among the drawers and shelves, she was all at once
aware, even without turning around, that Page was awake and watching
her. Laura cleared her throat.

"Have you seen my blue note paper, Page?" she asked. "I want to drop a
note to Mrs. Cressler, right away."

"No," said Page, as she rose from the couch. "No, I haven't seen it."
She came towards her sister across the room. "I thought, maybe," she
added, gravely, as she drew the heart-shaped match box from her pocket,
"that you might be looking for this. I took it. I knew you wouldn't
care to have Mr. Jadwin find it here."

Laura struck the little silver heart from Page's hand, with a violence
that sent it spinning across the room, and sprang to her feet.

"You took it!" she cried. "You took it! How dare you! What do you mean?
What do I care if Curtis should find it here? What's it to me that he
should know that Mr. Corthell came up here? Of course he was here."

But Page, though very pale, was perfectly calm under her sister's
outburst.

"If you didn't care whether any one knew that Mr. Corthell came up
here," she said, quietly, "why did you tell us this morning at
breakfast that you and he were in the art gallery the whole evening? I
thought," she added, with elaborate blandness, "I thought I would be
doing you a service in hiding the match box."

"A service! You! What have I to hide?" cried Laura, almost
inarticulate. "Of course I said we were in the art gallery the whole
evening. So we were. We did--I do remember now--we did come up here for
an instant, to see how my picture hung. We went downstairs again at
once. We did not so much as sit down. He was not in the room two
minutes."

"He was here," returned Page, "long enough to smoke half a dozen
times." She pointed to a silver pen tray on the mahogany table, hidden
behind a book rack and littered with the ashes and charred stumps of
some five or six cigarettes.

"Really, Laura," Pag