The sergeant glanced out of the window. “That’s queer! I was going to say that Miss Millicent couldn’t tell us anything important, and there she is now.”

Derrick looked up. The girl was just abreast of the tiny office, walking slowly. Involuntarily she turned her head, and their eyes met. Color mounted to her cheeks, and she bowed. Derrick went out to her quickly. There were no preliminaries.

“May we come over in a few days? I think perhaps you could help then.” He spoke as though their last conversation had only been interrupted.

“Do!” she nodded.

“And till then I hope you’re not worrying, or anxious?”

She shook her head, smiled, and sent him a look of complete confidence. “Would it seem odd if I said that I worry less now than in the past two years?”

“I’m so glad of that!”

“It’s quite true. I’m happier, and so is mother. I”—she hesitated a little—“I think we don’t feel so horribly alone.”

“You’re not.” His voice was queerly strained. “Indeed, you’re not.”

She glanced at him again, then turned quickly away.

Derrick looked after her, following the slight figure till it came to the corner of the green. Something of him went with her, and he reëntered the sergeant’s office wondering at himself.

Whatever doubts the latter might have had about this unofficial conference had been laid at rest. The new master of Beech Lodge was animated by more than mere curiosity. That was now established; and, surveying the past two years, the big man realized how heavily the unfathomed crime had rested on his own spirit. The memory of it could never leave him till the mysterious scroll was unrolled. This visit of Derrick’s might result in nothing; but, in a way not entirely clear, the chance of solution seemed at last a little more probable. He looked at the young man almost with respect.

“As I said, Miss Millicent could really tell us little more than her mother. She seemed just as frightened of something that might still take place as of what had happened. She knew about the image, but nothing of its history; and my impression was that she linked it up with the crime in a way that none of the rest of us did. She had no explanation of this. I got the impression that she understood her father, if one can put 

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