even to
Chester, except under protest.

"Hm! Well, I believe I'll sit up for him and help him off. A one-armed
man needs an attendant. Don't stay up, Miss Mathewson. I'll take any
message he may leave for you."

"I'm afraid I ought to wait," replied the faithful nurse doubtfully.

"I don't believe it. Go home and go to bed, like a tired girl, as you
no doubt are, and trust me. If he wants you I promise to telephone you.
I'll see him off and like to do it. Come!"

There being no real reason for doing otherwise than follow this most
sensible advice, Miss Mathewson went away. Chester, settling himself by
the drop-light in the chair she had vacated, fancied she looked a trifle
disappointed and wondered why. Surely, he reasoned, the girl must get
enough of erratic night work without sitting up merely to hand Burns his
overcoat and wish him a pleasant journey.

It was a long wait. Chester enlivened it by telephoning Winifred that
he wouldn't be home till morning--or sooner, and elicited a flurry of
questioning which he evaded rather clumsily.

It was all right for him to be curious concerning Red's affairs, he
considered, but there was no need for the women to get started on
inquisitive questions.

He read himself asleep at last over the office magazines, and was
awakened by a hurried step on the porch and a gust of November night air
on his warm face.

"What are you doing here?" was the question which assaulted him.

"Sitting up for you," was Chester's sleepy reply. He rubbed his eyes.
"Thought you might like to have me see you off:"

"I'm not going anywhere except back to the case I've just left. Go home
and go to bed."

Chester sat up. He looked at Burns with awakening interest. He had
never seen his friend's face look grimmer than it did now under the gray
slouch hat, which he had worn for the tramp, pulled well down over his
brows, and which, during all his preparations and his hasty departure
in the car, it had not occurred to him to remove or to exchange for the
leather cap he usually wore on such trips.

"Back to a country case instead of to Washington?" Incredulity was
written large on Chester's face.

Burns nodded, growing grimmer than before, if that were possible. He
sat down on the arm of a chair, glancing over at the desk where his
belongings lay. "How did you know I was going to Washington?"

"Inferred it."

"You're mighty quick at inference. Maybe I wasn't. But I was. Now I'm
not. That's a