ara, their arms
full of ferns, rounded the turn from the little dip at the side of the
grounds where the stream went through. We stood and waited for them.

"You two," Ina spoke quickly to them. "Mr. Boyne's just promised to come
over to dinner to-morrow night." Her glance asked me to accept the fib
and the invitation. "I want both of you."

"I'm going to be at your house anyhow, Ina," Barbara said, "working with
Skeet painting those big banners they've tacked up out in your court.
You'll have to feed us; but we'll be pretty messy. I don't know about a
dinner party."

"It isn't," Ina protested, smiling. "It's just what you said--feeding
you. Nobody there besides yourself and Skeet but Mr. Boyne and Worth--if
he'll come."

"I have to go up to San Francisco to-morrow," said Worth.

"But you'll be back by dinner time?" Ina added quickly.

"If I make it at all."

"Well, you can come just as you are, if you get in at the last minute,"
she said, and he and Barbara went on to carry their ferns in. When they
were out of hearing, she turned and floored me with,

"Mr. Vandeman has forbidden me to say this to you, but I'm going to
speak. If Worth doesn't have to be told about me--and his father--I'd be
glad."

"If the missing leaves of the diary are ever found," I came up slowly,
"he'd probably know then." I watched her as I said it. What a strange
look of satisfaction in the little curves about her mouth as she spoke
next:

"Those leaves will never be found, Mr. Boyne. I burned them. Mr. Gilbert
presented them to me as a wedding gift. He was insane, but, intending to
take his own life, I think even his strangely warped conscience refused
to let a lying record stand against an innocent girl who had never done
him any harm."

We stood silent a moment, then she looked round at me brightly with,

"You're coming to dinner to-morrow night? So glad to have you. At seven
o'clock. Well--if this is all, then?" and at my nod, she went up the
steps, turning at the side door to smile and wave at me.

What a woman! I could but admire her nerve. If her alibi proved
copper-fastened, as something told me it would, I had no more hope of
bringing home the murder of Thomas Gilbert to Mrs. Bronson Vandeman of
Santa Ysobel than I had of readjusting the stars in their courses!

CHAPTER XXIII

A BIT OF SILK

I must admit that when Worth and Barbara walked up and found me talking
to Ina Vandeman, I felt caught dead to rights.