The detective smiled indulgently as we parted. I saw now all the harm I had done. Poor Mrs. Atkins had feared from the first that she might be suspected, and having discovered that she was being watched, had naturally been unwilling to leave the protection of her own home. When Argot was arrested she thought all danger was over, till I stupidly blurted out that the detective was stalking a woman, not a man. Then she fled. And she chose the middle of the night, reasoning, no doubt, that at that hour the sleuth would most likely be off his guard. Since I had known her and her husband better, I could no longer suspect her, and I now tried to remember all the arguments Merritt had formerly used to prove her innocence. Foolish she might have been, but criminal, never,--I concluded. And it was I who had put her enemies on her track! CHAPTER XVI THAT TACTLESS DETECTIVE Her visit to town had certainly done May no harm. On the day of their arrival, she and her mother dined with me at the newest thing in restaurants, and we went afterwards to a roof garden. I had provided a man of an age suitable to Mrs. Derwent to make up the party, and so the evening passed pleasantly for all--delightfully for me. For, to my great relief, May seemed really better. With flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, she flitted gaily from one topic to another, and only occasionally did she give one of her nervous starts. Her good spirits kept up nearly to the end, when she suddenly sank back into the state of apathy, which, alas! I knew so well. Mrs. Derwent had taken care to inform me that Norman had called late that afternoon to inquire how they had borne the journey, and had been surprised to hear that they were dining out. Was this a hint that I should have invited him also? If so, it was one that I did not mean to take. Having at last succeeded in parting him from May, I was determined not to be the one to bring them together again. I had decided, in deference to May's morbid horror of seeing a doctor, that it would be better that her first interview with the nerve specialist should take place under circumstances which would lead her to suppose that their meeting was purely accidental. Thinking herself unnoticed, she would put no restraint on herself, and he would thus be able to judge much more easily of the full extent of her peculiarities. Mrs. Derwent and I had therefore arranged that we should all lunch together on the day following their arrival in town. Atkins's affairs, however, detained me so long that I was almost late for my appointment, and when I at last got to the Waldorf, I found the doctor already waiting for me.