ut here to watch me!"

"Oh, that's unkind, most unkind! Purely chance,--the usual way, you
know! How do you imagine I should be watching you with anything but the
noblest intentions?"

"You went to Bailey Harbor to look at a cottage for Mrs. Featherstone,
didn't you? Putney Congdon was there, wasn't he? And why are you
loitering here when you were so eager to get away to the Rockies?"

At the mention of Putney Congdon a laugh, the sharp concatenation of a
lunatic caused the driver to glance round apprehensively.

"That's the scream of it, you know!" Archie cried. "I don't know for the
life of me whether it was Putney Congdon I shot at the Congdon house or
Hoky, the burglar. They're burying Hoky today and my partner in
crime--wonderful chap--insisted on going to the funeral. You couldn't
beat that! And it's so deliciously funny that you should be looking for
Mrs. Congdon, who may be a widow for all I know!"

"A widow!" Isabel, with her hand clutching the door, swung upon him with
consternation and fear clearly depicted in her face.

Her astonishment moved him to greater hilarity. Seeing that he had at
last impressed her, he redoubled his efforts to be entertaining.

"Oh, that's the mystery just at present, whether poor old Putney is dead
or not! No great loss, I imagine! But where do you suppose Mrs. Congdon
went to hide her children from the brute?"

"That's exactly what I suspected!" she exclaimed furiously. "You are
waiting here to find that out! How can you play the spy for him! You
talk about shooting a man! Why, you haven't the moral courage to kill a
flea! The kindest interpretation I can put upon your actions is to
assume that you are hopelessly mad."

They had reached the station, and she jumped out and snatched her bag.
He gave the driver a five dollar bill and dashed across the platform
only to see her vanish into the vestibule of a Boston train just as it
was drawing out.

He walked to the water front firmly resolved to drown himself, but his
courage failing he yielded himself luxuriously to melancholy
reflections. Instead of expressing delight at finding him reveling in
villainy, Isabel had made it disagreeably clear that she not only was
not delighted but that she thought him a dreadful liar, a spy upon her
actions and possibly other things equally unflattering. Why she should
think him capable of spying upon her movements, he did not know, nor was
he likely to learn in the future that hung darkl