her. He didn’t look like that sort of man. His sunburned face somehow seemed to her a very honest one, and the expression on it was not at all flirtatious, but terribly troubled and unhappy.

“Perhaps he thinks he knows me,” she thought. “Well, he doesn’t, and he’s not going to, either!”

And she dismissed him from her mind.

“When did Caroline go?” she pondered, continuing her own miserable train of thought. “While I was doing cross words in the library? If she went out by the front door, she must have gone right past the library. She must have known I was there—and not even to say good-by!”

It hurt. She had grown very fond of the shy, quiet Caroline, and she had firmly believed that Caroline was fond of her. What is more, she had thought Caroline trusted her.

“She didn’t though. All the time, when we were so friendly together, she must have been planning this and—what?”

She stopped short, her dark brows meeting in a fierce frown, for the unknown man had come up beside her and spoken to her.

“Excuse me!” he said.

Lexy only looked at him, but he did not wither and perish under her scorn.

“I’ve got to speak to you,” he said.

“It’s—look here! I’ve been waiting outside the house all morning. Look here, please! You’re Lexy, aren’t you?”

This was a little too much!

“If you don’t stop bothering me this instant—” she began hotly, but he paid no heed.

“Where’s Miss Enderby?” he cried.

Lexy grew very pale. Those were the words she had heard over the telephone last night, and this was the same voice.

For a moment she was silent, staring at him, while he looked back at her, his blue eyes searching her face with a look of desperate entreaty. All her doubts vanished. She had not been wrong. She had been right—she was sure of it. She knew that something had happened—something inexplicable and dreadful.

“Please tell me!” he said. “You don’t know—you can’t know—she told me you were her friend.”

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