ounced the author, with a laughing bow. "You seem
surprised. Hadn't you heard? But of course not--it was all so sudden.
And I'm glad to say the papers don't seem to have got hold of it yet,
thanks to my forethought in booking passage under only half my name.
Some time before I sailed, Fay and I decided to--to let matters rest as
they were, and--she came with me." He was a trifle embarrassed, but
carried off the introduction with an air. "Mrs. Channing--Mr. Benoix!"

Philip was utterly bewildered. "Do you mean to say you have not seen
Jacqueline?"

"Jacqueline Kildare?" Channing's smiling ease left him. "Yes, I did see
her in New York, the day I left. You didn't think--" An inkling of the
other's errand dawned on him. He was suddenly alarmed, and, as usual in
moments of emergency, burst into his unfortunate glibness of speech.
"Why, she came to see me about studying for opera, something of that
sort--that was all. I had promised her introductions. Unfortunately she
came just as I was preparing to leave, and I had no time to do much for
her. I gave her letters to several teachers, and got her the address of
a good boarding-place...."

Philip muttered an exclamation.

"Oh, and I did more than that," said Channing quickly. "I talked to her
like a Dutch uncle; advised her to go straight back to Kentucky, and not
to do anything without her mother's permission--a great woman, Mrs.
Kildare! I told her New York was no place for a young girl alone, and
that she had been most indiscreet to come to me. I told her about
my--er--my marriage, of course. I offered her money--"

"You did _what_?" asked Philip, suddenly.

"Why--er--yes!" Channing was taken aback by his tone. "Why not? You know
what an impulsive, reckless child she is--she might very well have run
off without any money in her pocket, and I should have been
uncomfortable, quite miserable, to think--"

Philip's fist stopped the flow of words upon his lips.

"Wh-what did you do that for?" stammered the author, backing away.

"Put up your fists, if you've got any," was the answer.

Channing defended himself wildly, but without hope. He felt that his
time had come. A certain conviction paralyzed his already sluggish
muscles, "He knows!" he thought. "She's told him!"

Various things swam into his dizzy memory--the business-like
punching-bag in the rectory at Storm, the pistol in Philip's
riding-breeches, the fact that his father had been a convicted "killer"
in the