t you."

The man made a gesture of hopeless confusion, and she could not but
remark his surprising loss of colour. Suddenly he stepped to her side
and seized her roughly by the arm.

"Then who was it'?" he demanded furiously. "If it wasn't you--who
then? Damn it, you'd better tell me--!"

"Let go my arm!" she demanded with a flash of temper that was instantly
respected. "If you must know," she went on, reckless at consequences,
"it was your aunt who met and talked to you out there. Don't you
understand? She borrowed my costume and went to meet you in my place."

"Oh, my God!"

Savage was now chalky pale. He seemed to strive, to say more, but
failed for the constriction of his throat. For another instant he
stared incredulously, then, without a word of explanation or apology,
he turned and flung himself headlong down the steps!

Before reaching the middle landing, however, he checked himself on the
reflection that he must avoid attracting attention, and went on more
slowly, if still with many a symptom of nervous haste.

At the bottom he turned aside and was quickly lost in, the crowd.

Unable to pursue, dressed as she was, Sally went on to her room in a
mood of dark perplexity.

Surely it would seem that Savage must have been engaged in some
very damnable business indeed, and have given himself away
irremediably to Mrs. Gosnold, thinking her Sally, to exhibit such
unmitigated consternation on discovery of his error.

But what could it have been? Sally could imagine nothing in their
admittedly singular relations which, being disclosed to the aunt,
should so completely confound the nephew.

Mrs. Gosnold had suggested no insufferable resentment of the deception
practised upon her, when informed of it by Sally. And why, therefore,
Mr. Savage should comport himself as if the heavens had fallen on
learning that he had betrayed himself unconsciously to his aunt, was
something that passed Sally's comprehension.

And the strange flavour of the affair alarmed her: first, Mrs.
Gosnold's unexplained (but, after all, not inexplicable) failure to
return to her room on time; then this panic of Savage's.

It was patently the girl's immediate business to find one or the other
or both of them and make sure that nothing was radically wrong after
all.

By happy chance her very prettiest evening frock didn't hook up the
back; she was able to struggle into it not only without assistance,
but within a very few minutes.

Th