Bowman was with him," I
ventured.

Barbara, who had been sitting through this her eyes on Worth, turned
from him to me and pronounced, gently,

"Yes, he was here, and Laura was with him."

"Bobs!" Worth spoke so sternly that she glanced up startled. "I'll not
stand for you throwing suspicion on Jim."

"Did I--do that?" her lip trembled. Worth's eyes were on the fire.

"Don't quarrel with the girl," I remonstrated. Barbara had told me the
visitor; I covered my elation with, "She's only looking out for your
safety."

"I can look out for myself," curtly. He turned hard eyes on us. It made
me feel put away from him, chucked out from his friendship. "And I never
quarreled with anybody in my life. Sometimes--" he turned from one to
the other of us, speaking slowly, "Sometimes I seem to antagonize
people, for no reason that I can see; and sometimes I fight; but I never
quarrel."

"No offense intended--or taken," I assured him hastily. My heart was
full of his danger, and I told myself that it was his misery spoke, and
not the true Worth Gilbert. But a very pale and subdued Barbara said
tremulously,

"I guess I'd better go home now," suggesting, after the very slightest
pause, "Mr. Boyne can take me."

"Don't, Bobsie." Worth's voice was gentle again, but absent. It sounded
as though he had already forgotten both of us, and our possible cause of
offense. "Go to the house with Jerry. I'll bar the door and follow."

"Can't I help with that?" I offered.

"No. Eddie will give me a hand if I need it. Go on. I'll be with you in
a minute."

CHAPTER XIII

DR. BOWMAN

But it was considerably more than a minute before Worth followed us to
the house. We walked slowly, talking; when I looked back from the
kitchen porch, Worth had already come outside, and I thought Eddie
Hughes was with him, though I heard no voices and couldn't be sure on
account of the shrubbery between.

Getting into the house we found that Chung had the downstairs all opened
up through, lights going, heat turned on from the basement furnace;
everywhere that tended, homelike appearance a competent servant gives a
place. On the hall table as we passed, I noticed a doctorish top coat,
with a primly folded muffler laid across it.

"Dr. Bowman is here," Barbara said hardly above her breath.

We listened; no sound of voices from the living room; then I got the
tramp of feet that moved back and forth in there. We opened the door,
and there were