ur explanation of your long and mysterious absence."

The architect hesitated for a bare instant before he turned to reply.
The other noted that he had to stop to think, that neither movement
nor answer was spontaneous.

"Do you mean me to understand, Dr. Annister," he said courteously,
"that you think I am lying?"

"Let's not put it just that way. Suppose we call it the endeavor on
your part to conceal something you don't want known--the instinct of
self-defense. Morally, doubtless, it is the same thing. But I am not
concerned just now with the moral nature of the thing itself. I am
much concerned, however, for Mildred's sake, with the nature of the
thing behind it."

Brand shot a quick, uneasy glance at him and moved restlessly in his
chair. But there was no change in the customary, soft modulations of
his voice or the urbanity of his manner as he replied: "Pardon me, Dr.
Annister, but you are taking for granted something you have no right
to assume. You know that I am an honorable man, accustomed to show at
least ordinary regard for the truth. And therefore I say that you have
no right to doubt my word on mere suspicion."

"My suspicion, if you wish to call it so, is well enough grounded to
deserve, on my part, the most careful attention and, on yours, entire
respect. Your explanation seems to me to be so thin and full of holes
as not to be worth a moment's notice. It would be puerile for me to
tell you how many opportunities you would have had on the train, as
you were leaving the railroad, when you returned to it, and on your
way home, to write or to telegraph to me, to Mildred, or to Miss
Marne, and give us some idea of your whereabouts and assurance of your
safety."

"I did write, on the train, to Mildred and also to Miss Marne.
Apparently, the letters were lost in the mails or the porter forgot to
post them."

Dr. Annister's finger-tips patted one another softly while his eyes
searched the patrician face of his companion and marked in it signs of
uneasiness.

"I have always supposed," he said quietly, "that a telegraph line runs
beside the railroad into West Virginia, and I have not heard that the
wires were down during your absence."

Felix Brand rose and with hands thrust into his pockets moved
uncertainly from one chair to another. "Mildred has entire confidence
in my explanation," he said with a touch of defiance in his voice.
"She knows I would not deceive her."

"Mildred is young," her father