our
grandfather when I met you?" I said.

"You?" She was surprised.

"Yes. And you remember the alligator bag that I told you was exchanged
for the one you cut off my arm?" She nodded expectantly. "Well, in that
valise were the forged Andy Bronson notes, and Mr. Gilmore's deposition
that they were forged."

She was on her feet in an instant. "In that bag!" she cried. "Oh, why
didn't you tell me that before? Oh, it's so ridiculous, so--so hopeless.
Why, I could--"

She stopped suddenly and sat down again. "I do not know that I am sorry,
after all," she said after a pause. "Mr. Bronson was a friend of my
father's. I--I suppose it was a bad thing for you, losing the papers?"

"Well, it was not a good thing," I conceded. "While we are on the
subject of losing things, do you remember--do you know that I still have
your gold purse?"

She did not reply at once. The shadow of a column was over her face, but
I guessed that she was staring at me.

"You have it!" She almost whispered.

"I picked it up in the street car," I said, with a cheerfulness I did
not feel. "It looks like a very opulent little purse."

Why didn't she speak about the necklace? For just a careless word to
make me sane again!

"You!" she repeated, horror-stricken. And then I produced the purse and
held it out on my palm. "I should have sent it to you before, I suppose,
but, as you know, I have been laid up since the wreck."

We both saw McKnight at the same moment. He had pulled the curtains
aside and was standing looking out at us. The tableau of give and
take was unmistakable; the gold purse, her outstretched hand, my own
attitude. It was over in a second; then he came out and lounged on the
balcony railing.

"They're mad at me in there," he said airily, "so I came out. I suppose
the reason they call it bridge is because so many people get cross over
it."

The heat broke up the card group soon after, and they all came out for
the night breeze. I had no more words alone with Alison.

I went back to the Incubator for the night. We said almost nothing on
the way home; there was a constraint between us for the first time that
I could remember. It was too early for bed, and so we smoked in the
living-room and tried to talk of trivial things. After a time even those
failed, and we sat silent. It was McKnight who finally broached the
subject.

"And so she wasn't at Seal Harbor at all."

"No."

"Do you know where she was, Lollie?"

"Somewhe