or joy as
Sister Lake bade her "good-bye for an hour." As the door of the room
closed, the girl began counting the seconds which must pass before the
outer door shut.

"Sixty-two--sixty-three--she ought to be gone!" Clo was whispering, when
her heart sank. The room door opened. She feared that Sister Lake had
changed her mind; but it was the Angel who came in.

"I was racking my brain how to get rid of Sister when I saw her go out,"
Beverley said. "I'm sure you managed it. I've been desperate. You can't
think what things have happened! Tell me, did all go well?"

The blow must be struck. In a few words Clo described the scene at the
Westmorland; told how the ferret-man had kept her waiting; how he had
said that the envelope looked all right, but had insisted upon opening
it; how he had flown into a rage at finding only folded sheets of blank
paper.

"Blank paper!" Beverley gasped. "But that's impossible! I know what was
in the envelope. There were letters. The man must have tricked you."

Clo shook her head.

"I was watching him. He had no time, or chance, to play a trick. The
blank paper was there, and nothing else. It was writing paper, quite a
lot of sheets that seemed to have been taken from some train, 'Santa Fe
Limited,' or a name like that."

Beverley gave a cry, as if she had been struck over the heart.

"Let me think," she groaned. "How can that have been? Writing paper
taken from the train?"

Suddenly she turned, and came back to the bed, putting out her hands in
a groping way to Clo. The girl caught and held them tightly. They were
very cold.

"Angel! is there nothing I can do?" she whispered.

Beverley sank on the bed once more.

"My head feels as if I'd been given ether," she said. "I can't think
things out clearly. That isn't like me! A terrible day! One shock after
another. If I talk to you, will you swear by all that's sacred never to
give away one word?"

"I swear by my love for you. That's the most sacred thing I have, except
my locket with mother's picture," the girl answered.

"You see," Beverley went on, "I've no one else but you, Clo. If I told
my husband anything, I should have to tell all. I daren't do that. Not
because I couldn't trust him. But I've taken an oath ten times more
solemn than the one you took just now, to keep a secret that isn't only
mine. Another's life depends on the secret being kept. To save that life
I was forced to do what I hate to think of. And it's no co