her that she might guess the secret
it concealed.

"How did you happen to find him?"

"Shep was with me, running ahead. Shep found him."

"And some one had killed him?"

Wanda nodded, her lips tight pressed together, her hands twisting about
each other in her lap. For a moment there was silence in the little
room.

"Wanda, look at me, dear."

Her eyes turned, wondering, from the window and the orchard beyond, and
went swiftly to her mother. The words were very clearly a command now.
The voice was lowered a little but had grown more insistent. And it
seemed to her that Mrs. Leland's eyes had in them now something more
than sadness and anxiety, that they were suspicious. Again Wanda felt
the hot blood in her temples.

"What is it, mamma?"

"Who killed Arthur? Do you know?"

"Mamma!" she cried, startled. "Why do you ask that? What do you mean?"

"I want to know, dear. Do you know who killed him?"

"No." It was plain that she was troubled, it was equally as plain that
she spoke truthfully. "What makes you think . . . Why do you ask
that?"

"I thought," replied Mrs. Leland, a little uneasily, "that you might
have seen something, found something. . . ."

"No, no!" cried the girl impulsively. "I know what you mean. I have
no vaguest idea who could have done it!"

The older woman came across the room and sat down at her daughter's
side, putting her arm about the slender form.

"Wanda, dear," she said softly. "I am going to tell you something
which you don't know yet. Wayne quarrelled with Arthur last night!"

The girl's body stiffened convulsively. She wanted to spring up and
run out of the house to some hiding place in the old orchard and be
alone. But she answered, her eyes clear and truthful.

"I'm sorry. Oh, so sorry! Poor Wayne. That will make it so much
harder for him."

"Yes. It is going to make it hard for him, Wanda. Harder than you
have imagined." She paused as if considering the advisability of what
she had started to say, and then ended simply, hopelessly, "They are
going to think that Wayne shot him!"

"They mustn't!" cried Wanda hotly. "They haven't the right. It would
be thinking a lie, a wicked, hideous lie!"

Mrs. Leland shook her head sadly.

"Wanda," she went on quietly, "the first thing Garth said when I told
him was that Wayne had quarrelled with Arthur last night. I don't mind
so much what Garth says and does, but . . . I think that Martin is
going to