I had ever been in Montgomery, as though to be sure I had no
acquaintances there. I carried back a verbal answer--which was
stipulated in the letter. The answer was 'No,' and in what way Mr. Fitch
passed it on to his client I never knew."

"You didn't tell me those things when we found the letter, Daniel," said
Mrs. Owen reproachfully.

The old lady opened a drawer, found a chamois skin, and polished her
glasses slowly. Dan walked away as though to escape from that figure
with averted face crouching by the fire. But without moving Sylvia
spoke again, with a monotonous level of tone, and her question had the
empty ring of a lawyer's interrogatory worn threadbare by repetition to
a succession of witnesses:--

"At that time was Mr. Bassett among the clients of Wright and Fitch, and
did you ever see him in the office then, or at any time?"

Mrs. Owen closed the drawer deliberately and raised her eyes to Dan's
affrighted gaze.

"Daniel, you'd better run along now. Sylvia's going to spend the night
here."

Sylvia had not moved or spoken again when the outer door closed on
Harwood.

CHAPTER XXXII

"MY BEAUTIFUL ONE"

Miss Farrell was surprised to find her employer already in his office
when she unlocked the door at eight o'clock the next morning, and her
surprise was increased when Harwood, always punctilious in such matters,
ignored the good-morning with which she greeted him. The electric lights
over Dan's desk were burning, a fact not lost upon his stenographer. It
was apparent that Harwood had either spent the night in his office or
had gone to work before daylight. Rose's eyes were as sharp as her wits,
and she recognized at a glance the file-envelopes and papers relating to
the Kelton estate, many of them superscribed in her own hand, that lay
on Harwood's desk.

She snapped off the lights with an air that implied reproof, or could
not have failed of that effect if the man at the desk had been conscious
of the act. He was hopelessly distraught and his face appeared no less
pallid in daylight than in the electric glare in which Rose had found
him. As the girl warmed her hands at the radiator in the reception room
the telephone chimed cheerily. The telephone provides a welcome
companionship for the office girl: its importunities and insolences are
at once her delight and despair. Rose took down the receiver with
relief. She parleyed guardedly with an unseen questioner and addressed
Harwood from the do