!" he said. "Why didn't you do what I asked
you to, Gertrude? You send Bailey off with an empty gun, and throw
mine in a tulip bed, of all places on earth! Mine was a thirty-eight
caliber. The inquest will show, of course, that the bullet that killed
Armstrong was a thirty-eight. Then where shall I be?"

"You forget," I broke in, "that I have the revolver, and that no one
knows about it."

But Gertrude had risen angrily.

"I can not stand it; it is always with me," she cried. "Halsey, I did
not throw your revolver into the tulip bed. I--think--you--did
it--yourself!"

They stared at each other across the big library table, with young eyes
all at once hard, suspicious. And then Gertrude held out both hands to
him appealingly.

"We must not," she said brokenly. "Just now, with so much at stake,
it--is shameful. I know you are as ignorant as I am. Make me believe
it, Halsey."

Halsey soothed her as best he could, and the breach seemed healed. But
long after I went to bed he sat down-stairs in the living-room alone,
and I knew he was going over the case as he had learned it. Some
things were clear to him that were dark to me. He knew, and Gertrude,
too, why Jack Bailey and he had gone away that night, as they did. He
knew where they had been for the last forty-eight hours, and why Jack
Bailey had not returned with him. It seemed to me that without fuller
confidence from both the children--they are always children to me--I
should never be able to learn anything.

As I was finally getting ready for bed, Halsey came up-stairs and
knocked at my door. When I had got into a negligee--I used to say
wrapper before Gertrude came back from school--I let him in. He stood
in the doorway a moment, and then he went into agonies of silent mirth.
I sat down on the side of the bed and waited in severe silence for him
to stop, but he only seemed to grow worse.

When he had recovered he took me by the elbow and pulled me in front of
the mirror.

"'How to be beautiful,'" he quoted. "'Advice to maids and matrons,' by
Beatrice Fairfax!" And then I saw myself. I had neglected to remove
my wrinkle eradicators, and I presume my appearance was odd. I believe
that it is a woman's duty to care for her looks, but it is much like
telling a necessary falsehood--one must not be found out. By the time
I got them off Halsey was serious again, and I listened to his story.

"Aunt Ray," he began, extinguishing his cigarette o