heaven's name, where have you been?" Mr. North demanded testily.
"How many times have I instructed you to remain close at my side when
we alight!"

"I knew where you were, you see," she exclaimed calmly. "There was
something I had to attend to."

"Telegrams to your friends? Surely they might have waited until a more
suitable time! You have caused me great anxiety----"

"I'm sorry if I worried you, Mr. North." Her tone was chastened, but
there was an undernote of warning. "I've been free so long that I kind
of forget I'm under extradition."

A wave of contrition swept over his ill-humor as her slim-clad figure
preceded him out to the waiting motor. She had been coolly
insubordinate, of course, but she was young and very much alone in a
strange environment. She could be led, perhaps, but she would never be
driven.

Cesare, the Halsteads' chauffeur, touched the brim of his cap smartly,
and Willa bestowed upon him a dazzling smile. Only the snap of the
limousine door prevented her shaking hands.

"He looks like a right-nice boy," she remarked naively. "Do you
suppose he'll teach me how to drive a car of my own?"

"If he is told to do so," Mr. North replied with dignity, "and it is
decided that you are to have a car."

She darted an appraising glance at him, but he vaguely felt a certain
ambiguous quality in the silence which followed, and congratulated
himself that they had reached their journey's end.

Mrs. Ripley Halstead awaited them in the drawing-room. She was a tall,
commanding woman in the indefinite forties, with a high, thin nose and
cold, slightly protruding eyes. Her dark hair, still untouched by
gray, was arranged in a modishly severe fashion and her smile extended
no farther than her straight lips.

"So this is our little cousin?" She brushed the girl's cheek with a
light kiss. "My dear Willa, words cannot express our pleasure that you
have been found at last, we have doubted and feared for so long. I
hope that you will be very happy here with us, and I am sure that we
shall all manage famously."

"Thank you," Willa murmured, through stiffened lips. "This situation
has been kind of thrust on both of us, but I reckon we can make the
best of it."

The lady gasped and turned to the attorney, who was watching with a
gleam of speculation in his eye.

"Mason, we have much to thank you for in restoring our young relative
to us, but I must defer that now. You will dine with us?"

"Tha