tore by them old letters," Jan-an was rambling along. "I'd
have taken them back to her, but I 'clar, 'fore God, I don't know
which is which, I'm that cluttered. Why did he want to pest her by
taking them and then making more and more?"

"I'm trying to find out." Northrup spoke almost harshly. He wanted to
quiet the girl.

The last scrap of paper had been torn from an old, greasy bag and bore
clever imitation. It was the last copy, Northrup believed, of what
Jan-an said he had just carried away with him.

Northrup grew hot and cold. He read the words and his brain reeled. It
was an appeal, or supposed to be one, from a dead man to one whom he
trusted in a last emergency.

"So he's this kind of a scoundrel!" muttered Northrup, dazed by the
blinding shock of the fear that became, moment by moment, more
definite. "And he's taken the thing to her in order to get money."

Northrup could grope along, but he could not see clearly. By
temperament and training he had evolved a peculiar sensitiveness in
relation to inanimate things. If he became receptive and passive,
articles which he handled or fixed his eyes upon often transmitted
messages for him.

So, now, disregarding poor Jan-an, who rambled on, Northrup gazed at
the letters near him, and held close the brown-paper scrap which was,
he believed, the final copy before the finished production which was
undoubtedly being borne to Mary-Clare now. Rivers would have a scene
with his wife in the yellow house. With no one to interfere! Northrup
started affrightedly, then realized that before he could get to the
crossroads whatever was to occur would have occurred.

Larry would return to the shack. There was every evidence that he had
not departed finally. Believing that no one would disturb his place so
late at night he had taken a chance and--been caught by the last
person in the world one would have suspected.

As an unconscious sleuth Jan-an was dramatic. Northrup let his eyes
fall upon the girl with new significance. She had given him the power
to set Mary-Clare free!

Her dull, tear-stained face was turned hopefully to him; her straight,
coarse hair hung limply on her shoulders--the old coat had slipped
away and the ugly nightgown but partly hid the thin, scraggy body.
Lost to all self-consciousness, the poor creature was but an evidence
of faith and devotion to them who had been kind to her. Something of
nobility crowned the girl. Northrup went around to her and pul