She sat down in the reception room close to the window, pulled up the blind and waited. Drawn back from the eyes of passers-by she could command the sidewalk and the street for some distance and if, by any evil chance, Larkin should be late, she could see him coming and tell Aggie McGee to say she was not there. Up to now Larkin had been punctual to the dot, but on this, the one occasion when punctuality was vital, he was not on time. Twelve passed, then the quarter, and the sun-swept length of the great avenue gave up no masculine figure that bore any resemblance to him. She was growing nervous, wondering what she had better do, when he hove in sight walking quickly toward the house. A glance at her wrist watch told her it was twenty minutes past twelve—Miss Maitland and Bébita might not be back for another half hour yet. She would chance it, for she was extremely anxious to see him, and anyway, if they should come in before he left, she could tell him to go into the drawing room and slip out after they had gone. Relieved by the decision she rose and was turning toward the mirror, when she caught sight of a taxi scudding up the street with Esther Maitland’s face in the window. A word not generally used by ladies escaped Suzanne. There was nothing for it but to send him away. She ran into the hall and pressed the bell, listening in a fever for Aggie McGee’s step on the kitchen stairs. Simultaneously with its first heavy thud came the peal of the front door bell. Suzanne, who had noticed that the taxi was moving fast and would make the steps before Larkin, called down on Aggie McGee’s ascending head: "That’s Miss Maitland. A gentleman I expected is just behind her. I can’t see him now, I haven’t time. Tell him I’ve been here and gone." She went back into the reception room and stood listening. She heard the door opening, Esther’s step in the hall; it was all right, the detective would get his congé without being seen by any one but Aggie McGee. She drew a breath of relief and turned smiling to the girl in the doorway. Miss Maitland did not give back the smile; she sent a searching look over the room and said in a low, breathless voice as if she had been running: "Is Bébita here?" There was a moment of silence. Through it the heavy tread of Aggie McGee passing along the hall sounded unnaturally loud. As it went clump, clump, down the kitchen stairs Suzanne was aware of Miss Maitland’s face, startlingly strange, ashen-colored. At first it was all she took in. "Bébita—here?" she stammered. "How could she be? She’s with you." Miss Maitland made a step into the room, her hands went up clenched to her chest, her voice came again through the broken gasps of a runner: "No—she isn’t. I thought I’d find her with you—I thought she’d come back. Oh, Mrs. Price—" she stopped, her eyes, telling a message of disaster, fixed on the other. Suzanne’s answer came from opened lips, dropped apart in a sudden horror: