ider
awake, "I'm very glad you've come."

John detected a reservation of some sort in this afterthought; faintly
ironic perhaps. There was, at any rate, a conspicuous absence of any
implication that his presence was urgently needed just then, or eagerly
waited for.

He replied with an irony a little more marked, "It's an unexpected
pleasure to find you here. They're wanting you rather badly up at Ravinia
these days, I understand."

March nodded, cast a glance in the direction of the stairs and led the
way decisively into the drawing-room. His pantomime made it clear that he
did not wish the rest of the slumbering household aroused. Considerate of
him, of course, and all that, but the decisiveness of the action--as if
he somehow felt himself in charge, despite the arrival of his
host--roused in John a faint hostility.

He followed nevertheless. He saw at once where his unaccountable visitor
had made his bed. A big cane davenport had been dragged into the bay
window, its velvet cushions neatly stacked on the piano bench, and the
composer's coat, rolled with his deftness of experience, had served him
for a pillow. Not a bad bed for such a night as this that John himself
had sweltered through so unsuccessfully. Probably the coolest place in
the house, right by those open south windows. But all, the same ...

"Couldn't Rush do better for you than that?" he said. "There must be a
dozen beds in the house."

"Rush isn't here," March answered. "I believe he went to Lake Geneva
yesterday, for over Sunday."

John Wollaston felt the blood come up into his face as the conviction
sprang into his mind that Lucile wasn't here, either. She'd never have
left the front door unbolted. She'd never have permitted a guest, however
explicit his preferences, to sleep upon the cane davenport in the
drawing-room with his coat for a pillow.

It was as if March had followed his train of thought step by step.

"Miss Wollaston isn't here either," he said. "She was detained by a
broken spring in the car. I believe she expects to arrive this morning."

A faint amusement showed in his face and presently brightened into a
smile. "I'm really very relieved," he added, "that it was you who got
here first."

And then the smile vanished and his voice took a new timbre, not of
challenge, certainly not of defiance, but all the more for that of
authority. "The only other person in the house is Mary."

A sudden weakness of the legs caused John to s