aid. "He worked all day yesterday fixing this
place for you--yes, for you, my dear. I am not blind--and last night you
refused to let him bring you up."

"He told you!" I flamed.

"He wondered what he had done. And as you wouldn't let him come within
speaking distance of you, he came to me."

"I am sorry, Anne, since you are fond of him," I said. "But to me he is
impossible--intolerable. My reasons are quite sufficient."

"Kit is perfectly right, Anne," Leila broke in. "I tell you, there is
something queer about him," she added in a portentous whisper.

Anne stiffened.

"He is perfect," she declared. "Of good family, warm-hearted,
courageous, handsome, clever--what more do you ask?"

"Honesty," said Leila hotly. "That a man should be what he says he is."

Anne and I both stared.

"It is your Mr. Harbison," Leila went on, "who tried to escape from the
house by putting a board across to the next roof!"

"I don't believe it," said Anne. "You might bring me a picture of him,
board in hand, and I wouldn't believe it."

"Don't then," Lollie said cruelly. "Let him get away with your pearls;
they are yours. Only, as sure as anything, the man who tried to escape
from the house had a reason for escaping, and the papers said a man in
evening dress and light overcoat. I found Mr. Harbison's overcoat today
lying in a heap in one of the maids' rooms, and it was covered with
brick dust all over the front. A button had even been torn off."

"Pooh!" Anne said, when she had recovered herself a little. "There isn't
any reason, as far as that goes, why Flannigan shouldn't have worn Tom's
overcoat, or--any of the others."

"Flannigan!" Leila said loftily. "Why, his arms are like piano legs; he
couldn't get into it. As for the others, there is only one person who
would fit, or nearly fit, that overcoat, and that is Dallas, Anne."

While Anne was choking down her wrath, Leila got up and darted out of
the tent. When she came back she was triumphant.

"Look," she said, holding out her hand. And on her palm lay a lightish
brown button. "I found it just where the paper said the board was thrown
out, and it is from Mr. Harbison's overcoat, without a doubt."

Of course I should not have been surprised. A man who would kiss a woman
on a dark staircase--a woman he had known only two days--was capable of
anything.

"Kit has only been a little keener than the rest of us," Lollie said.
"She found him out yesterday."

"Upon my word,