"It was like this. I couldn't get to sleep last night because a window was rattling in the hall, so I got up and went out to fix it. When I passed by Mr. Hebler's door, I saw his diamond ring on a table near the door. Ain't it awful how careless folks are! I opened a drawer in the table and slipped it in, and I clean forgot all about it till a little while ago. Maybe he's got it on by this time, though." "All right, Mrs. Merlin, I'll tell him," said Kurt, hastily going in and up to Hebler's room. The diamond fairly blazed at him in accusation as he opened the drawer. And yet Hebler had told him that he had the ring! He hadn't been in the house after he had said the ring was missing. And why had Pen said she took it? Maybe she had taken that method of returning it. He went downstairs, pondering over the mystery. This time Marta stopped him, excitedly. "Oh, Mr. Walters, Jo and I have been looking for you! Miss Lamont didn't take the ring." "I know she didn't. I just learned, Marta, that Mrs. Merlin saw it on the table and put it away." "Find Miss Lamont and tell her!" cried Marta in distress. "You see she thought I took it. She had reason to think so--the way I acted. She was protecting me." "I see," he said despairingly. "I made her think you had taken it." "Come outside and see Jo." "Jo," he asked desperately, when he had joined him, "do you know where she is? She has gone. I must know." "Kurt, you might as well try to catch a piece of quicksilver as Penny Ante, if she don't want to be caught." "Have you the slightest idea as to where she has gone or where she might have gone?" "Maybe I could venture a guess. I'll have to know first why you want to know." Something more compelling than any emotion he had yet known kept down the anger that otherwise would have risen at being thwarted. "I love her, Jo," he said quietly. "For how long, Kurt, have you loved her?" "Since the first night I met her," he said slowly and reminiscently. "When we camped on the trail. She lay asleep in the moonlight." "Have you forgotten what you warned me against that day I told you about Marta--about marrying a thief." "I was a simp, then, Jo. I had never been in love." "Well," pursued Jo, "why didn't you tell her you loved her in the first place? Maybe it would have helped. It isn't much of a compliment to a girl to hang around and not say anything." "Think, Jo. I supposed until Marta came, that Pen was _your_ girl. I brought her up here to see if she could be reformed for _you_. I sent you away to Westcott's until I could tell if she were worthy of you." "Say, Kurt, I am the simp. I never thought of that. She didn't think you really cared. Leave it to me. I'll tell her." "But where is she? Don't let the boys know, but Betty leaked the fact that she was going to France. I can't think she was in earnest." Jo whistled. "I am beginning to get glimpses on a dark subject. I'll bet that is where he is making for, too."