rted toward Westcott's expecting to
get a lift to town. If no one had picked her up en route, he could easily
overtake her in the big car, which Gene had now repaired.

"Go and tell the boys to get ready, Betty."

Betty sped gleefully away.

"Oh, Mr. Walters!" hailed Mrs. Merlin, coming from the house, "when you
see Mr. Hebler, tell him I put his diamond ring away. I'm awfully
forgetful. I--"

"You put his diamond ring away? Where?" asked Kurt faintly.

"It was like this. I couldn't get to sleep last night because a window was
rattling in the hall, so I got up and went out to fix it. When I passed by
Mr. Hebler's door, I saw his diamond ring on a table near the door. Ain't
it awful how careless folks are! I opened a drawer in the table and
slipped it in, and I clean forgot all about it till a little while ago.
Maybe he's got it on by this time, though."

"All right, Mrs. Merlin, I'll tell him," said Kurt, hastily going in and
up to Hebler's room. The diamond fairly blazed at him in accusation as he
opened the drawer.

And yet Hebler had told him that he had the ring! He hadn't been in the
house after he had said the ring was missing. And why had Pen said she
took it? Maybe she had taken that method of returning it.

He went downstairs, pondering over the mystery. This time Marta stopped
him, excitedly.

"Oh, Mr. Walters, Jo and I have been looking for you! Miss Lamont didn't
take the ring."

"I know she didn't. I just learned, Marta, that Mrs. Merlin saw it on the
table and put it away."

"Find Miss Lamont and tell her!" cried Marta in distress. "You see she
thought I took it. She had reason to think so--the way I acted. She was
protecting me."

"I see," he said despairingly. "I made her think you had taken it."

"Come outside and see Jo."

"Jo," he asked desperately, when he had joined him, "do you know where she
is? She has gone. I must know."

"Kurt, you might as well try to catch a piece of quicksilver as Penny
Ante, if she don't want to be caught."

"Have you the slightest idea as to where she has gone or where she might
have gone?"

"Maybe I could venture a guess. I'll have to know first why you want to
know."

Something more compelling than any emotion he had yet known kept down the
anger that otherwise would have risen at being thwarted.

"I love her, Jo," he said quietly.

"For how long, Kurt, have you loved her?"

"Since the first night I met her," he said slowly and reminiscently.