went to Johnny
Montgomery's house, but he wasn't there. Then some one told Mr.
Dingley they had seen a man run down Washington Street, so they
followed that trail, and finally they got him in a house down on the
water front, in a bad part of the city. My father said it would have
made things better for him if he had given himself up quietly; but he
barricaded the house, and almost escaped out of a back window. They
had a dreadful fight before they got him even then. He is so strong,
father says, that he just threw the men right and left as if he had
been a madman."

Hallie is wonderful when she is telling news. She never says unkind
things about anybody, and she is always so excited over what has
happened that she makes it sound like a romance. But now I was too
anxious to enjoy it. I felt I had to ask one question more, though
every word that came out of my mouth was a possible slip or lie. "But,
if they found Mr. Rood in the street with nobody near him, what makes
them think it was Mr. Montgomery who shot him?"

"That is the very queerest part of it," Hallie declared, nodding until
her green feathers nodded again, "but he was suspected immediately.
What they say is--" she lowered her voice impressively--"that some one
saw him do it."

I fairly cowered in my chair. "But he can't have meant to kill him," I
urged. "Why, his family was one of the best in the city. Just think,
Hallie, your mother knew his mother well, and he used to play with
Estrella's brothers."

Estrella flushed. "He hasn't been in our house since he was a little
boy," she said angrily. "I wouldn't think of bowing to him on the
street. He hasn't been received in good society for a long time."

Hallie sagely shook her head. "Yes, but I guess it's because he didn't
care to go, and lots of very nice girls have always been in love with
Johnny Montgomery. Lily West kept his picture in a satin case hidden
among her party clothes for ever so long. And do you know, when Laura
Burnet heard about Johnny's arrest last night, she fainted flat on the
floor."

Hallie's bolt upright impressiveness seemed to demand some comment, but
I could not manage a sound; for at her words there rushed back to me,
with humiliating clearness, my own hysterics of the night before. Was
it possible that Hallie thought I was in love with him, too? My cheeks
burned and burned.

"Were you ever introduced to him, Ellie?" Estrella asked, looking at me
curiously.