hedge, at the lawn. Her eyes were
dizzy from the flickering lights. She could not see him clearly, and the
figure that followed him across the lawn was harder to see.

It was a man's figure, slightly taller than her husband's. The man had
not come from the veranda windows, or from the house at all, he had
slipped round one corner of the house, stood still in the shelter of it,
seeming to hesitate there, and then plunged suddenly across the lawn at
a queer little staggering run. Twice she saw him stand still, so still
that she lost sight of him under the trees, as if he had slipped away
through the dark.

In the garden Mrs. Kent's performance was over, and the game of
blind-man's buff was beginning. It was a novelty, and acclaimed even at
this stage of the evening. Lillian Burr's shrill laugh and Edith Kent's
pretty, childish one could be heard through the other sounds. They were
trying to blindfold the Colonel, who struggled but laughed, too, looking
somehow vacuous and old, with his longish, white hair straggling across
his forehead. No one in the garden but Minna Randall had attention to
spare for an arriving guest, expected or unexpected.

Which was he? He was out of sight again, but this time she had seen him
reach the edge of the lighted enclosure. Was he gone, or waiting
outside, or had he stepped under the trellis of the rose arbour, to
appear suddenly at the end of it and among them? Instinctively she kept
her eyes upon it, though her husband had already passed through. She was
watching for the figure that it might frame next.

"Harry," she said to her husband, who had seen her and elbowed his way
to her, and stood beside her, looking pale and tired like herself in the
lanternlight and not boyish at all, "who was that man? Who was it
following you?"

He paid no attention to her question. He did not seem to hear it. He put
a hand on her arm, and she could feel that it trembled.

"Oh, Harry, what is it?" she said. "I've had such a horrible evening.
I'm so afraid."

"Don't be afraid, Minna," he said very gently, "but you must come to the
telephone. Norah's calling you. She's just come home. She wants to tell
you something about Judith."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Judith?" Mrs. Randall took her husband's news quietly, with something
that was almost relief in her face, the relief that comes when a
gathering storm breaks at last, and you learn what it is you have been
afraid of, though you must go on bein