right. Send for Mr. Andrews if you wish, but you mustn't
expect to talk to him without witnesses. Is that your coat and hat?"
"Yes."
"Well, put them on."
Mr. Fellows advanced and whispered something in the officer's ear.
Immediately the suspicious look grew in his eyes, and he watched her
every movement with increased care. She saw this and stepped up to him.
"I shall not deny having this piece of jewelry about my person," she
said, drawing the bracelet from its hiding place. "The man whom Mr.
Fellows calls my confederate gave it to me and I took it; but it will be
hard for him or any one else to prove that it is a theft, harder than it
will be for me to prove who is the real culprit here and the man whom
you ought to arrest. Watch me, but watch him also; he is more deserving
of your close attention than I am."
Her disdain, her poise, the beauty which came out on her face when she
was greatly stirred, gave her a striking appearance at that moment. The
officer stared, then followed her glance toward Mr. Fellows. What he saw
in him made him thoughtful. Turning back to Miss Lee, he said kindly
enough, "Will you let me have that bracelet?"
She passed it over and he thrust it in his pocket.
"Now," said he, "I will go first. In a few minutes follow me and go down
Nassau Street. A carriage will be at the curb. Take it. As for Mr.
Fellows----"
"I cannot leave till some of the clerks come in."
"We will all wait till a clerk comes."
Mr. Fellows paled.
"Here is one now."
The door opened and Philip Andrews came in.
[Illustration: "_The door opened and Philip Andrews came in_"]
"Oh, Philip!"
"What is this? What have you done among you?"
It was no wonder he asked. At sight of him Grace Lee had fainted.
CHAPTER XIX
"_So that was your motive_"
Two hours later Grace was explaining herself. She was still pale, but
very calm now, though a little sad. The sadness was not occasioned by
any doubt she felt about her father. She had telephoned home and learned
that he had arrived there and was well, and had nothing but good to say
of his captors. No, there was another cause for her manifest depression,
a cause not disconnected with Philip, toward whom her eyes ever and anon
stole with an uneasy appeal which her mother would have been troubled to
see. But it comforted Fellows, who began to regard her threats as idle
in face of the evidence of her complicity as afforded by the concealed
bracel
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