s settled--and a good
job, too!"

She turned on him furiously.

"How dared you-!"

"Didn't I deserve it, catching you the way I did?" he asked, opening
his eyes in mock wonder. "And didn't you deserve it for being so silly
as to try anything like that?" He jerked his head too ward that
window. "What on earth possessed you--?"

"Don't you know? Don't you understand?" she stormed. "I'm accused of
stealing Mrs. Gosnold's jewels--locked up. You knew that surely!"

"What an infernal outrage!" he cried indignantly. "No, I didn't know
it. How would I? I"--he faltered--"I've been having troubles of my
own."

That drove in like a knife-thrust the memory of the scene in the
garden with Mrs. Artemas. The girl recoiled from him as from something
indescribably loathsome.

"Oh!" she cried in disgust, "you are too contemptible!"

A third voice cut short his retort, a hail from above. "Hello, down
there!"

With a start Sally looked up. Her window was alight again, and
somebody was leaning head and shoulders out.

"Hello, I say! Is that the Manwaring woman '? Stop her; she's escaping
arrest!"

Trego barred the way to the gardens; and that was as well (she thought
in a flash) for now the only hope for her was to lose herself
temporarily in the shadows of the shrubbery.

The thought of the trees that stood between the grounds and the
highway was vaguely in her mind with its invitation to shelter when
she turned and darted like a hunted rabbit around the corner of the
house.

Before Trego regained sight of her she was on the lawns. Crossing them
like the shadow of a wind-sped cloud, she darted into the obscurity of
the trees and vanished. And Mr. Trego, observing Mr. Lyttleton emerge
from under the porte-cochere and start in pursuit, paused long enough
deftly to trip up that gentleman with all the good will imaginable and
sent him sprawling.

Frantic with fright, her being wholly obsessed by the one thought of
escape, Sally flew on down the drive until, on the point of leaving
the grounds by the gate to the highway, she pulled up perforce and
jumped back in the nick of time to avoid disaster beneath the wheels
of a motor-car swinging inward at a reckless pace.

Involuntarily she threw a forearm across her eyes to shield them from
the blinding glare of the headlamps. In spite of this she was
recognised and heard Mrs. Gosnold's startled voice crying out: "Miss
Manwaring! Stop! Stop, I say!"

With grinding brakes the c