“‘Paul died yesterday. Heart disease,’” she read. “‘Wire at once if Louise is with you.’ You see, Miss Innes, Louise must have started east, and Fanny is alarmed about her.” “Yes,” I said. “Louise is not here,” Mrs. Fitzhugh went on, “and none of her friends—the few who are still in town—has seen her. I called you because Sunnyside was not rented when she went away, and Louise might have, gone there.” “I am sorry, Mrs. Fitzhugh, but I can not help you,” I said, and was immediately filled with compunction. Suppose Louise grew worse? Who was I to play Providence in this case? The anxious mother certainly had a right to know that her daughter was in good hands. So I broke in on Mrs. Fitzhugh’s voluble excuses for disturbing me. “Mrs. Fitzhugh,” I said. “I was going to let you think I knew nothing about Louise Armstrong, but I have changed my mind. Louise is here, with me.” There was a clatter of ejaculations at the other end of the wire. “She is ill, and not able to be moved. Moreover, she is unable to see any one. I wish you would wire her mother that she is with me, and tell her not to worry. No, I do not know why she came east.” “But my dear Miss Innes!” Mrs. Fitzhugh began. I cut in ruthlessly. “I will send for you as soon as she can see you,” I said. “No, she is not in a critical state now, but the doctor says she must have absolute quiet.” When I had hung up the receiver, I sat down to think. So Louise had fled from her people in California, and had come east alone! It was not a new idea, but why had she done it? It occurred to me that Doctor Walker might be concerned in it, might possibly have bothered her with unwelcome attentions; but it seemed to me that Louise was hardly a girl to take refuge in flight under such circumstances. She had always been high-spirited, with the well-poised head and buoyant step of the outdoors girl. It must have been much more in keeping with Louise’s character, as I knew it, to resent vigorously any unwelcome attentions from Doctor Walker. It was the suitor whom I should have expected to see in headlong flight, not the lady in the case. The puzzle was no clearer at the end of the half-hour. I picked up the morning papers, which were still full of the looting of the Traders’ Bank, the interest at fever height again, on account of Paul Armstrong’s death. The bank examiners were working on the books, and said nothing for publication: John Bailey had been released on bond. The body of Paul Armstrong would arrive Sunday and would be buried from the Armstrong town house. There were rumors that the dead man’s estate had been a comparatively small one. The last paragraph was the important one.