ntelligence.

So Sally ended by believing it rather more than possible that Mrs.
Gosnold knew as well as the girl herself who had consummated the
crime--or, at all events, shared the damning suspicions engendered in
Sally's mind by circumstantial evidence.

Lyttleton, of course: Sally entertained but the slenderest doubts of
his black guilt.

If innocent, what had he been carrying hidden in the hollow of his
arm? What had he left down there on the beach? Why had he left
it there? Why such anxiety to escape observation as to make the man
alert to notice Sally's head peering over the parapet of the landing
at the head of the cliff? And if he had been employed in no way to be
ashamed of, and had no consequences to fear, why that roundabout way
up the cliff again and that ambush of his watcher?

And why those signals between window and yacht, if not to apprise the
latter that something had been consummated, that the coast was clear
for its tender to come in and take away the plunder?

It would seem, then, that Mr. Lyttleton must have had a confederate in
the house, and for that role Mrs. Standish was plainly designated. An
understanding of some close sort between her and Lyttleton had been
quite evident from the very first day. And whose bedchamber window had
shown the signals, if not hers? Not the pretty young widow's--not in
any likelihood Mrs. Artemas'. To believe the latter intimate with the
affair was to assume an understanding between her and Lyttleton--or
else Trego.

Trego!

Sally was conscious of a slight mental start, a flurry of thoughts and
sensations, of judgment in conflict with emotions.

Why not Trego? A likelier man than Lyttleton for such a job,
indeed. Trego had such force of personality as to excuse the suspicion
that what he might desire he would boldly go after and possess himself
of. With a nature better adapted to the planning and execution of
adventures demanding courage, daring and indifference to ethical
considerations, Trego was capable of anything. Lyttleton was of
flimsier stuff, or instinct were untrustworthy.

But after a little the girl sighed and shook her head. It was less
plausible, this effort of hers, to cast Trego for the role of villain.
True, he might have invented that story of the marks on the sands;
true again, he might have acted in accord with Mrs. Artemas. But those
were far-fetched possibilities. Unless, indeed, professed distrust and
dislike of Mrs. Artemas had be