Although her hands were shaking Alys lifted from the lavender-scented drawers the severely chaste underwear of the leader of Elsinore society, and as soon as the suitcases were packed, she made haste to adjust Mrs. Balfame's veil and pin it so firmly that no more kisses could be exchanged. Of her ultimate purpose Alys had not the ghost of an idea, but kiss a woman whom she believed to be guilty of murder and whom she might possibly be driven to betray, she would not. Suddenly grown as secretive as if she had a crime of her own to conceal, she even walked out to the car with Mrs. Balfame and helped to drive away the crowding newspaper women, several of whom she recognised. They in turn bore her off, determined to get some sort of a story for the issues of the morrow. CHAPTER XX Mrs. Balfame was whirled to Dobton in ten minutes--herself, she fancied, the very centre of a whirlwind. The automobile was pursued by three cars containing members of the press, which shot past just before they reached Dobton Courthouse, that the occupants might leap out and fix their cameras. Other men and women of the press stood before the locked gate of the jail yard, several holding cameras. But once more the reading public was forced to be content with an appetising news-story illustrated by a tall black mummy. Mrs. Balfame walked past them holding her clenched hands under her veil, but to all appearance composed and indifferent. The sob-sisters were enthusiastic, and the men admired and disliked her more than ever. Your true woman always weeps when in trouble, just as she blushes and trembles when a man selects her to be his comforter through life. The Warden and his wife, who but a few weeks since had moved into their new quarters, had moved out again without a murmur and with an unaccustomed thrill. What a blessed prospect after screaming drunks, drug-fiends and tame commercial sinners! The doors clanged shut; Mrs. Balfame mounted the stairs hastily, and was still composed enough to exclaim with pleasure and to thank the Warden's wife, Mrs. Larks, when she saw that flowers were on the table and even on the window-sills. "I guess you'll stand it all right," said Mrs. Larks proudly. "Just make yourself at home and I'll have your lunch up in a jiffy." Mrs. Cummack and Mrs. Gifning had come in the car with Mrs. Balfame, and Cummack and several other men of standing arrived almost immediately to assure her, with pale disturbed faces, that they were doing their best to get her out on bail. While she was trying to eat her lunch, the telephone bell rang, and her set face became more animated as she recognised Rush's strong confident voice. He had read the news in the early edition of the afternoon papers, in New York, telephoned to Dobton and found that his immediate fear was realised and that she was in the County Jail. He commanded her to keep up her spirits and promised to be with her at four o'clock.