She looked at him as if not understanding and then half stammered: “What remark?” “That Mr. Warren ought to be killed,” was the cold reply. As if realizing the seriousness of the chief's tone, the girl's face went very white. Slowly her fingers opened and closed; her eyes studied the water for a moment as if she was trying to fix in her mind the distant shore. Then she slowly raised her head and in a look which included us both said: “I did say that. But it was a very silly thing to say and it meant nothing. Mr. Warren was alive when I left him and, of course, I know nothing about his death.” As the girl hesitated, the chief broke in: “I am not saying you did know anything about his death. I only want to make you see how you placed yourself in a bad position by going away and by the remark you made. Why did you say it?” The secretary gave a half laugh, though there was a tone of disgust in it. “It's all very simple. Mr. Warren was a very hard man to work with. He was rushing his book and I was working from ten to twelve hours a day. He paid pretty well, of course, but once in a while he would get mad and then he would sure bawl me out. The afternoon I left we had a little disagreement.” “What over?” was my question. The girl gave me a surprised look. Remembering that he had not given my name, the chief introduced me as a friend of Carter's. Then the secretary replied: “Two things. Mr. Warren had reached the place where he was dictating a chapter about the social and marriage customs of the natives of China.” She paused, half blushed and went on: “It was pretty frank, that chapter. Finally, he decided I should copy some pages from a book he had. He got the book from one of the cases—a case he kept always locked. It was a pretty rotten book—so rotten that I kicked a bit about copying the two pages. And then he flared up and said that if I did not care to do his work I could quit. And I got mad, and”—she laughed a bit sheepishly—“I guess it was the warm day got us both; anyway I got mad and left. I went to the house, and when I was packing my grip, the more I thought of it the madder I got. That's why I said the foolish thing I did to the housekeeper.” A cold flurry of wind came sweeping across the lake, and I saw the girl shiver. It was getting late in the afternoon. As I pulled out my watch to see the time, the chief said the girl had better dress, and that we would take her back to the village. As she seemed a little startled at this remark, he told her she was the only person who could tell us if anything had been taken from Warren's library. This seemed to relieve her a good deal, for there was little doubt in my mind that she thought the chief was going to arrest her. Saying she would be ready in a few moments, she rose to her feet and went slowly to the cottage. When she was out of hearing the chief turned to me: “Mr. Pelt, I guess there is no doubt that girl is telling the truth.”