veranda was shady,
green with vines and palms, cheerful with cushions and lounging chairs.
We put Louise in a steamer chair, and she sat there passively enough,
her hands clasped in her lap.

We were very silent. Halsey sat on the rail with a pipe, openly
watching Louise, as she looked broodingly across the valley to the
hills. There was something baffling in the girl's eyes; and gradually
Halsey's boyish features lost their glow at seeing her about again, and
settled into grim lines. He was like his father just then.

We sat until late afternoon, Halsey growing more and more moody.
Shortly before six, he got up and went into the house, and in a few
minutes he came out and called me to the telephone. It was Anna
Whitcomb, in town, and she kept me for twenty minutes, telling me the
children had had the measles, and how Madame Sweeny had botched her new
gown.

When I finished, Liddy was behind me, her mouth a thin line.

"I wish you would try to look cheerful, Liddy," I groaned, "your face
would sour milk." But Liddy seldom replied to my gibes. She folded her
lips a little tighter.

"He called her up," she said oracularly, "he called her up, and asked
her to keep you at the telephone, so he could talk to Miss Louise. A
THANKLESS CHILD IS SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH."

"Nonsense!" I said bruskly. "I might have known enough to leave them.
It's a long time since you and I were in love, Liddy, and--we forget."

Liddy sniffed.

"No man ever made a fool of me," she replied virtuously.

"Well, something did," I retorted.

CHAPTER XIX

CONCERNING THOMAS

"Mr. Jamieson," I said, when we found ourselves alone after dinner that
night, "the inquest yesterday seemed to me the merest recapitulation of
things that were already known. It developed nothing new beyond the
story of Doctor Stewart's, and that was volunteered."

"An inquest is only a necessary formality, Miss Innes," he replied.
"Unless a crime is committed in the open, the inquest does nothing
beyond getting evidence from witnesses while events are still in their
minds. The police step in later. You and I both know how many
important things never transpired. For instance: the dead man had no
key, and yet Miss Gertrude testified to a fumbling at the lock, and
then the opening of the door. The piece of evidence you mention,
Doctor Stewart's story, is one of those things we have to take
cautiously: the doctor has a patient who wears black and