leads you to send for such as me, Miss
Beekman!" he demanded, glowering at her.

She felt suddenly unnerved, startled and rather shocked at his use of
her name. Where could he have discovered it? From the keeper, probably,
she decided. All her usual composure, her quiet self-possession, her
aloof and slightly condescending sweetness--had deserted her.

"I thought," she stammered--"I might--possibly--be of help to you."

"'Tis too late to make up for the harm ye've done!" His coal-black eyes
reached into her shrinking body as if to tear out her heart.

"I!" she gasped. "I--do harm! What do you mean?"

"Did not my sister Katie work for yez?" he asked, and his words leaped
and curled about her like hissing flames. "Did you see after her or
watch her comings and goings, as she saw after you--she a mere lass of
sixteen? Arrah! No!"

With a sensation of horror Miss Althea realized that at last she was in
a murder case in spite of herself! This lad, the brother of Katie, the
waitress whom she had discharged! How curious! And how unfortunate! His
charge was preposterous; nevertheless a faint blush stole to her cheek
and she looked away.

"How ridiculous!" she managed to say. "It was no part of my obligation
to look after her! How could I?"

His hawk's eyes watched her every tremor.

"Did ye not lock her out the night of the ball when she went wid
McGurk?"

"I--how absurd!"

Suddenly she faltered. An indistinct accusing recollection turned her
faint--of the housekeeper having told her that one of the girls insisted
on going to a dance on an evening not hers by arrangement, and how she
had given orders that the house should be closed the same as usual at
ten o'clock for the night. If the girl couldn't abide by the rules of
the Beekman menage she could sleep somewhere else. What of it? Supposing
she had done so? She could not be held responsible for remote,
unreasonable and discreditable consequences!

And then by chance Shane O'Connell made use of a phrase that indirectly
saved his life, a phrase curiously like the one used on a former
occasion by Dawkins to Miss Althea:

"Katie was a member of your household; ye might have had a bit of
thought for her!" he asserted bitterly.

Dawkins had said: "You'd think a girl would have some consideration for
her employer, if nothing else. In a sense she is a guest in the house
and should behave herself as such."

There was no sense in it! There was no parallel, no analogy