then fastened the
coffin and covered it again. Of course the snow effaced every one of
their tracks. He came in, naturally scared to death, and told us that
story based on the legends of the Cedars and the doctor's supernatural
theories. And you must admit that he might, as you call it, have got away
with it. He did create a mystification. The body of the murdered man had
disappeared. There was no murdered Blackburn as far as you could tell.
Heaven knows how long you might have struggled with the case of Howells."

He glanced up.

"Here is Miss Katherine."

She stood at the head of the stairs.

"I think she's all right," she said to the doctor. "She's asleep. She
went to sleep crying. May I come down?"

The doctor nodded. She walked down, glancing from one to the other
questioningly.

"Poor Maria!" Paredes mused. "She's the one I pity most. She's been at
times, I think, what Rawlins suspected--an insane woman, wandering and
crying through the woods. Assuredly she was out of her head to-night,
when I found her finally at the grave. I tried to tell her that her
father was dead. I begged her to come in. I told her we were friends. But
she fought. She wouldn't answer my questions. She struck me finally when
I tried to force her to come out of the storm. Robinson, I want you to
listen to me for a moment. I honestly believe, for everybody's sake, I
did a good thing when I asked Silas Blackburn just before he disappeared
why he had thrown his brother's body in the lake. I'd hoped it would
simply make him run for it. I prayed that we would never hear from him
again, and that Miss Katherine and Bobby could be spared the ugly
scandal. Doesn't this do as well? Can't we get along without much
publicity?"

"You've about earned the right to dictate," Robinson said gruffly.

"Thanks."

"For everybody's sake!" Bobby echoed. "You're right, Carlos. Maria must
be considered now. She shall have what was taken from her father, with
interest. I know Katherine will agree."

Katherine nodded.

"I doubt if Maria will want it or take it," Paredes said simply. "She has
plenty of her own. It isn't fair to think it was greed that urged her.
You must understand that it was a bigger impulse than greed. It was a
thing of which we of Spanish blood are rather proud--a desire for
justice, for something that has no softer name than revenge."

Suddenly Rawlins stooped and took the Panamanian's hand.

"Say! We've been giving you the raw en