ran as
she could.

Father Michel, Jamie Henderlin, and some other of the burn people had
arrived by this time, but it was Nancy who thought for all of us,
refusing to go to her rooms, and insisting upon taking a part in the
search with us. Aside from the strain upon her, I was grateful in my
soul for this determination, for laws and courts and country
notwithstanding, my mind was fixed to do everything possible to prevent
suspicion falling on the son of Alexander Carmichael, who, I began to
fear, would be accused of a hand in the affair.

During the rest of the night, through all the talk and the searching of
the grounds, there were two lines of thought in my mind, the one
planning, explaining, and excusing Danvers, the other seeming to assist
in present conduct and to suggest immediate courses of action.

It was Nancy herself who was first upon the little balcony of the
window by which the dead man was still sitting. Father Michel, Huey
MacGrath, and I followed, and going down the steps I struck my foot
against some light object, kicking it far ahead of me, and on the
instant Nancy sprang forward, leaned over and picked up something in
the snow.

"What is it?" I cried.

She held out to me the piece of lace she had worn as a head covering to
the dance--held it far out, so that all could see what it was, but made
no response in words--and after the fruitless search was finished
consented to go to her room. As I stood by her door, undecided whether
or not to tell her of the hatless man I had met in the snow, she
suddenly threw her arms wide apart and dropped unconscious at my feet.
I lifted her up, wild with this new anxiety, and as I did so the lace
unrolled, and from it fell a cap, with snow upon it, a man's cap with a
strangely embroidered band which Nancy had worked for Danvers
Carmichael the summer before. At sight of it I could have cried out as
a woman does, for I knew it to be the object I had struck with my foot
under the window, and the last hope for Danvers Carmichael seemed to
vanish from my mind at sight of it.

Her consciousness was not long in returning, and before it came back I
had wrapped the cap in the lace again, trusting her woman's wit to do
the wise thing concerning it.

"Leave me alone, Jock," she said suddenly, as to my amazement she went
to the wash-hand-stand, filled the basin with cold water, and dipped
the whole top of her curly head into it.

"There must be no trifling with headach