XXV THE ACCUSATION 258
XXVI THE STAR WITNESS 273
XXVII CONCLUSION 299

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JANE ALLEN: RIGHT GUARD

CHAPTER I

DAY DREAMS

"Come out of your day dream, Janie, and guess what I have for you."

Hands behind him, Henry Allen stood looking amusedly down at his
daughter.

Stretched full length in a gaily striped hammock swung between two great
trees, her gray eyes dreamily turned toward the distant mountain peaks,
Jane Allen had not heard her father's noiseless approach over the
closely clipped green lawn.

At sound of his voice, she bobbed up from the hammock with an alacrity
that left it swaying wildly.

"Of course I was dreaming, Dad," she declared gaily, making an
ineffectual grab at the hands he held behind him.

"No fair using force," he warned, dexterously eluding her. "This is a
guessing contest. Now which hand will you choose?"

"Both hands, you mean thing!" laughed Jane. "I know what you have in one
of them. It's a letter. Maybe two. Now stand and deliver."

"Here you are."

Obligingly obeying the imperative command, Mr. Allen handed Jane two
letters.

"Oh, joy! Here _you_ are!"

Jane enveloped her father in a bear-like hug, planting a resounding kiss
on his sun-burnt cheek.

"Having played postman, I suppose my next duty is to take myself off and
leave my girl to her letters," was his affectionately smiling comment.

"Not a bit of it, Dad. I'm dying to read these letters. They're from
Judith Stearns and Adrienne Dupree. But even they must wait a little. I
want to talk to _you_, my ownest Dad. Come and sit beside me on that
bench."

Slipping her arm within her father's, Jane gently towed him to a quaint
rustic seat under a magnificent, wide-spreading oak.

"Be seated," she playfully ordered.

Next instant she was beside him on the bench, her russet head against
his broad shoulder.

"Well, girl of mine, what is it? You're not going to tell me, I hope,
that you don't want to go back to college."

Henry Allen humorously referred to another sunlit morning over a year
ago when Jane had corralled him for a private talk that had been in the
nature of a burst of passionate protest against going to college.

"It's just a year ago yesterday, Dad," Jane returned soberly. "What a
horrid person I was to make a fuss and spoil my birthday. But I