"Give that to your employer," he said. On the card was written: "If
anything happens to me you will be indicted for the Kaparoff business,
and there is enough evidence in a safe place to make you pay the
penalty. Lichtenstein."

"And now, Miss Ferris," he said, "it will be as well to let this girl
first telephone to her master to say that I am here, and second to pack
her trunks and go."

Barbara smiled, but not unkindly, at Marion, and nodded her brightly
colored head. "I think that will be best, Marion."

The maid turned without a word and started for the hall-door, but was
brought to a trembling stop by sudden words from Bubbles.

"Miss Barbara," said he, "ask her where your diamond bow-knot went!"

"Oh," exclaimed Lichtenstein, "an excuse for keeping an eye on her,
perhaps. That was what we needed. How about this bow-knot, Marion?"

The guilt in the girl's face must have been obvious to the dullest eye.

"Oh," said Barbara, "is it good enough? She'd communicate with him
somehow. This isn't the Middle Ages. Marion, if by any chance any of my
things have gotten mixed with yours, please leave them on my
dressing-table."

Marion, very red in the face, lurched out of the room.

"I can't very well give her a character," said Barbara.

Lichtenstein laughed. "Plenty of worse girls," he said, "receive
excellent characters daily. And now I suppose I ought to put distance
between this house and myself."

Barbara lifted her eyebrows. "Why?"

"Why? She's probably working the telephone now."

"I know," said Barbara, "but if you pretend to go, and then come back,
this would be the last home in the world that Blizzard would suspect
you of hiding in. Marion will tell him her story. And he certainly won't
look for you here."

Lichtenstein's face was wreathed in smiles, "So be it," he said, "and I
shall sit at your feet to learn."

"Can you drive a car?" asked Barbara.

"What kind of a car?"

"A Stoughton? But if you can drive any kind you can drive a Stoughton.
We'll lend you a car and you shall take a long run and come back when
it's dark. If you start at once, Marion will know of it. Meanwhile I'll
tell my father all about everything. But first of all I'm dying with
curiosity to know what you wrote on that card. That's all I can say. Of
course if I'm not to be told--"

Had she asked for his dearest secret Lichtenstein could not have refused
it, and he told her what he had written on the card.

"But why," sa