"I'll answer no questions," cried Phelan. With a desperate backward leap he gained the narrow doorway behind and vanished. He pulled the door shut and clung to the knob, hearing the muffled demand hurled at him: "Here! Come back here! Helen! Helen! I want my niece! Oh, Helen, come to auntie!" Then Barnes and the other pretty ward of the distraught Mrs. Burton entered the room. The young man had stopped Sadie in the hallway to ask a few questions and endeavored to soothe the frightened girl. He had taken possession of her hand again and still held it as he led her to the door of the drawing room. They did not attempt to enter until after the precipitate disappearance of Michael Phelan. As Mrs. Burton stood looking helplessly at the closed door, her ample bosom heaving and her breath coming in short hysterical gasps, Barnes was whispering to Sadie: "Ah, Miss Sadie, I can't tell you how overjoyed I am at seeing you again. And so that's your auntie--fancy that chap refusing to meet her! Why"---- That was as far as he got. Auntie suddenly wheeled round and caught sight of him. "Ah! Gladwin!" she screamed and made a rush for him. With all his characteristic aplomb and insouciance Whitney Barnes was unable to face such a rush with any degree of calmness. "No! no! a mistake!" he retorted and sought to sidestep. Mrs. Burton was too quick for him and seized his arm in an iron grip. "Where is Helen? What have you done with her?" she demanded in the same wild tones. "I-I-I d-d-don't know," stammered Barnes. "You have hidden her somewhere and you must give her up," stormed the woman. "You're a scoundrel--you're a kidnapper--you're a wretch." She flung Barnes from her with all her strength and he slammed against the wall. She was about to charge upon him again when Sadie rushed between them. "Oh, auntie," she cried. "This is not Mr. Gladwin." "Of course he isn't," chimed in Barnes, trying to shake himself together again. "He isn't Mr. Gladwin at all." "Then who are you?" cried Mrs. Burton. "Oh, he's some one else," Sadie assured her. "Yes, you bet I am," continued Barnes, striving his best to appear his usual jaunty self. "I'm some one else entirely different--I-I'm not Gladwin in the least." "What are you doing here?" shot out Mrs. Burton. "Ah, that's it," he responded. "I'm on guard--keeping watch!" "I knew it! I knew it!" and the shrill voice rose to a plangent pitch again. "You have hidden her away. Helen! Helen!" "Now, now, now--my dear lady," broke in Barnes, soothingly. "I'm not your dear lady," she flashed on him. "My dear auntie"--Mrs. Burton's hysteria was becoming contagious--"I beg your pardon," he added hastily, "your niece, Miss Helen, is not here. I've been watching for hours, and she's not here--no one is here." "That shirt-sleeved man is here--and you're here!" "But, auntie, he's a friend of Mr. Gladwin's," interposed Sadie.