She was dully astonished that Clive’s disbelief in Vail should have moved her so profoundly. She had not realized, until she heard him attacked, all that Thaxton was coming to mean to her. A glimpse of this new wonder-feeling had been vouchsafed her when she saw Vail knock down a man so much larger and bulkier than himself. The sight had thrilled her unaccountably. But it had been as nothing to the reaction at hearing his honesty doubted. Long she stood there, forcing herself to look in the face this astounding situation wherein her heart had so imperceptibly floundered. At last, turning from her blind survey of the moon-flooded lawn, she moved toward the living room. At her first step she paused. Some one was rounding the house from the front, treading heavily on the rose-bordered gravel path that skirted the veranda. Doris waited for the newcomer to draw nearer. On came the heavy, fast-moving steps. And now they were mounting the veranda’s side stair. In the moonlight, the face and body of a man were clearly revealed. CHAPTER VIII THE INQUISITION At first glance the man was Clive Creede. And Doris wondered how he chanced to have left the house and to have approached the veranda in such a roundabout way. Then, as he stood before her, she saw he was not in dinner clothes, but in a dark lounge suit. And as he lifted his soft hat at sight of her, she saw his forehead was bald and that he wore spectacles. Also that there was a sagging stoop to his shoulders and the hint of a limp in his walk. Clive’s twin brother was the last man she cared to meet in her present tumultuous frame of mind. At best she had never been able to bring herself to like him. Yet he had come too close now to be avoided without rudeness. As he recognized her, Osmun Creede took an impulsively eager step forward. “Why, Doris!” he exclaimed joyously. “This is better luck than I looked for. What on earth are you doing at Vailholme? And why are you out here all alone? Doesn’t the same moon that interests you interest Clive or Vail?” “Oh, you’ve come to see Clive?” she asked, trying to speak civilly and not to let herself be annoyed by the man’s awkward attempts at banter. “Yes,” said Osmun. “He’s stopping with Vail till his house gets disinfected or loses the reek of some chemicals that made him sick. Why he should choose to come here instead of to his own brother’s home,” he added bitterly, “is a mystery to me. Probably he has his own reasons. Anyhow, I came over to see if he is better and if there’s anything I can do for him. I didn’t ring because I saw through the windows that there’s a party of some kind going on. I saw a bunch of people in the living room. And I’m in tramping clothes. I came around to the side door, on the chance of finding a servant I could send upstairs to Clive to find how he is.” “Clive was out here five minutes ago,” she replied. “He went back to the interrogation. I’ll--”