rue Percival Coolidge took me to that cottage
to have certain mysterious things explained, and they were explained to
my complete satisfaction."

"By Hobart?"

"Yes."

"You knew the fellow before?"

She hesitated slightly, although there was no perceptible change in the
answering voice.

"For several years; he was in my father's employ; the--the whole trouble
originated in a joke, and--and was quite amusing, once I understood. Of
course, after that, I had no further need for you. Why did you persist in
annoying me?"

West hesitated an instant, his mind struggling with the situation. Was
she honest, truthful, in this statement? Could he say anything which
would change her viewpoint? She must have been deceived by these men, yet
how could he expose them so she would comprehend? He was so little
certain of the facts himself, that he had nothing but suspicion to offer.

"Why do you not answer, Captain West?"

The girl's eyes were clear, insistent, a little amused; they somehow
aroused his determination.

"I will endeavour to make you understood, Miss Natalie," he explained
slowly. "I would not have you feel that I deliberately pushed myself into
this affair. When I left Fairlawn after your dismissal, I had no thought
of ever seeing you again. I have already told you the interest I had felt
in you up to that time, but your abruptness during our last interview,
left me angry, and with no inclination to seek your presence again. You
can scarcely blame me for such a feeling?"

"No," she confessed. "I--I was so excited and nervous I was not
very nice."

"You certainly hurt me. I departed with a sense of wrong rankling, and no
desire to come back. But fate intervened. You know, perhaps, that I
overheard the shot which ended the life of Percival Coolidge, and I was
the first to discover his dead body. This made no particular impression
on me at the time. I supposed it a case of suicide, and so bore witness
at the inquest. The whole matter would have ended there; but the next day
you discharged Sexton also, and the man sought me out at the Club."

She leaned forward, her lips parted, a new light in her eyes.

"He told you something? He made you suspicious?" she asked breathlessly.

"He caused me to see the affair from a somewhat different point of
view--a point of view which, I confess, revived my interest in you. I
began to believe you had been deceived, and your treatment of me arose
through a misunderstanding;