"The person who called you seemed to know nothing regarding your intention of coming to Block Island. He said his name was Inness." "'Inness'?" repeated Bassett in a puzzled tone. "He said you would remember him," said Mr. Cameron, watching the hotel clerk warily. "His message was, that if you would consider leaving New York--leaving the East, in fact--there was an opening for you at a distance. He spoke of the climate as probably being beneficial to Mrs. Bassett." "Inness said that?" responded the hotel clerk. "You know who he is?" "I know him very well," answered the other slowly. "But I do not understand his sudden interest in me or his knowledge of the state of Mrs. Bassett's health. That he should feel any interest in my affairs whatever surprises me." The flush did not die out of his cheek. Mr. Cameron did not seek to draw the young man's confidence. "I merely repeat what he said over the telephone. He seemed to think you would know how to communicate with him if you wished to do so." "I presume I do," admitted the clerk thoughtfully. "But--I wonder what is behind it? I never have considered Inness a friend of mine." And there the conversation came to an end. "He is the Griffin's secretary--that Inness," said Carolyn's father, speaking to her mother about it afterward. "Whether the inquiry over the 'phone was instigated by Mr. Bassett or not, of course I do not know. Perhaps the Griffin wants to get Joe out of the way. If anything should really happen to the young woman or her baby the newspapers would probably get hold of it and rake up all the scandal. These wealthy people do not like to have such affairs aired in the public press." "And do you suppose that is all Mr. Bassett cares about his son, and his wife and child?" queried Hannah Cameron thoughtfully. "I wish you had heard him when I put young Joe's situation up to him that time. The Griffin is as hard as nails. Yet it might fret him to have the young fellow so near if anything happened to him. Or, perhaps, he may be trying to save Joe's mother unpleasant knowledge of the son's affairs." "I wonder what sort of woman the older Mrs. Bassett is?" Mrs. Cameron murmured. "Does she care nothing about her son and his wife and baby?" "The less we know about it--or worry about it--the better, I fancy," returned Mr. Cameron. "But isn't that a very selfish way of looking at it, Lewis?" sighed his wife. However, she said no more about the Bassetts at the time. When Carolyn got up on Monday for her early morning run with Prince, her father's visit to the island seemed almost like a dream. He had brought her a new sun hat and some goodies; but now that he was gone she missed him as she had missed him for all the three weeks since she had left New York. "When we get real rich, Princey," she told her closest companion, "Papa Cameron will have vacations just like _we_ do. Then we shall all be together all the time."