coffee-cup and read his
hurried scrawl:

"What do you think has happened now? I have fourteen dollars' worth of
telegrams from Sanderson--wiring from some God-forsaken hole in Montana,
that it's all rot about Armitage being that fake Baron von Kissel. The
newspaper accounts of the _expose_ at my supper party had just reached
him, and he says Armitage was on his (Armitage's) ranch all that summer
the noble baron was devastating our northern sea-coast. Where, may I ask,
does this leave me? And what cad gave that story to the papers? And
where and _who_ is John Armitage? Keep this mum for the present--even
from the governor. If Sanderson is right, Armitage will undoubtedly turn
up again--he has a weakness for turning up in your neighborhood!--and
sooner or later he's bound to settle accounts with Chauvenet. Now that I
think of it, who in the devil is _he_! And why didn't Armitage call him
down there at the club? As I think over the whole business my mind grows
addled, and I feel as though I had been kicked by a horse."

* * * * *

Shirley laughed softly, keeping the note open before her and referring to
it musingly as she stirred her coffee. She could not answer any of Dick's
questions, but her interest in the contest between Armitage and Chauvenet
was intensified by this latest turn in the affair. She read for an hour
in the library, but the air was close, and she threw aside her book, drew
on a light coat and went out upon the veranda. A storm was stealing down
from the hills, and the fitful wind tasted of rain. She walked the length
of the veranda several times, then paused at the farther end of it, where
steps led out into the pergola. There was still a mist of starlight, and
she looked out upon the vague outlines of the garden with thoughts of its
needs and the gardener's work for the morrow. Then she was aware of a
light step far out in the pergola, and listened carelessly to mark it,
thinking it one of the house servants returning from a neighbor's; but
the sound was furtive, and as she waited it ceased abruptly. She was
about to turn into the house to summon help when she heard a stir in the
shrubbery in quite another part of the garden, and in a moment the
stooping figure of a man moved swiftly toward the pergola.

Shirley stood quite still, watching and listening. The sound of steps in
the pergola reached her again, then the rush of flight, and out in the
garden a flying figure d