Clive looked glumly down into her appealingly upraised face for a moment. Then he squared his shoulders and spoke. “You’ve asked for it,” said he, speaking between his shut teeth and with growing reluctance. “I’d give ten years’ income not to tell you--and I’d give ten years of my life not to believe it’s he.” “Who?” He hesitated. Then, a tinge of evasion in his unhappy voice, he replied: “Every one of us was robbed.... Except one.” She frowned, perplexed. “What’s that got to do with it?” she asked. “Thax was the only one of us who wasn’t robbed. That doesn’t answer my question at all.” He said nothing. “Clive Creede!” she burst forth, incredulously. “Do you mean to say you are--are--_imbecile_ enough to believe such a thing of Thax? Why, I-- _Clive!_” There was a world of amazed contempt in her young voice. The man winced. Yet he held his ground doggedly. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he said. “I know, as well as you do, that Thax didn’t do it through dishonesty or because he needed the money. He has more cash now than he can spend. But--” “Then why--” “Either he did it as a mammoth practical joke or else--” “Thax is not a practical joker,” she interpolated. “No one but a fool plays practical jokes.” “Or else,” he resumed, “he did it to get rid of his unwelcome guests. That is the most likely solution.” “The most likely solution,” she said hotly, “the _only_ sane solution is that he didn’t do it at all. It’s absurd to think he did. He--” “He is the only one of us who wasn’t robbed,” persisted Clive. “He is the only one of us familiar enough with every room and every piece of furniture to have gone through the house so quickly and so thoroughly, taking only the most valuable things from each of them. Nobody else would have had time to or a chance to. He is the only one of us who could have been seen going from room to room without being suspected. I thought of all that. But I wouldn’t believe it till he said himself just now that he hadn’t been robbed. That proved it to me. That’s why I came out here. It turned me sick to think--” “Clive,” said the girl, quietly, “either the war or else those exploding chemicals in your Rackrent Farm laboratory seems to have had a distressing effect on your mentality. I’ve known you ever since I was born. In the old days you could never have made yourself believe such a thing of Thax Vail. You know you couldn’t. Oh, if--” Her sweet voice trembled. She turned away, staring blindly out into the moonlight. “I’m sorry,” said Clive, briefly. He hesitated, looking in distress at her averted head. Then with a catch of the breath he turned and strode into the living room. Doris took a step toward the French window to follow him. But there were tears in her eyes, and she felt strangely shaken and unhappy from her talk with Creede. She did not wish the others to see her until she should have had time to recover her self-control. Wherefore she remained where she was.