e had written. "If you should happen to meet any
member of my family, for heaven's sake don't mention my name. They might
link you up with the Hawaiian Garden, or the trip to the camp that night
grandmother was hurt. Just let our friendship be a little secret between
you and me."

"'You and me,'" Quin repeated the words softly to himself, as he stood
there among the objects made sacred by her one-time presence.

"Madam Bartlett wishes you to come upstairs and explain the papers before
she signs them," said a woman in nurse's uniform from the stair landing,
and, cap in hand, Quin followed her up the steps.

At the open door of the large front room he paused. Lying in royal state
in a huge four-poster bed was Madam Bartlett, resplendent in a purple
robe, with her hair dressed in its usual elaborate style, and in her ears
pearls that, Quin afterward assured the Martels, looked like moth-balls.

"You go on out of here and stay until I ring for you," she snapped at the
nurse; then she squinted her eyes and looked at Quin. She did not put on
her eye-glasses; they were reserved for feminine audiences exclusively.

"What do they mean by sending me this jumble of stuff?" she demanded,
indicating the papers strewn on the silk coverlid. "How do they expect me
to know what they are all about?"

"They don't," said Quin reassuringly, coming forward; "they sent me to
tell you."

"And who are you, pray?"

"I am Mr. Randolph's er--er--secretary."

For the life of him he could not get through it without a grin, and to
his relief the old lady's lips also twitched.

"Much need he had for a secretary!" she said, then added shrewdly:
"Aren't you the soldier that put the splint on my leg?"

Quin modestly acknowledged that he was.

"It was a mighty poor job," said Madam, "but I guess it was better than
nothing."

"How's the leg coming on?" inquired Quin affably.

"It's not coming on at all," Madam said. "If I listen to those fool
doctors it's coming off."

Quin shook his head in emphatic disapproval.

"Don't you listen to 'em," he advised earnestly.

"Doctors don't know everything! Why, they told a fellow out at the
hospital that his arm would have to come off at the shoulder. He lit out
over the hill, bath-robe and all, for his home town, and got six other
doctors to sign a paper saying he didn't need an amputation. He got back
in twenty-four hours, was tried for being A. W. O. L., and is serving his
time in the prison wa