But Sam’s voice came strident through the megaphone. “Be good, you two,” he bellowed, “I’ve got the binoculars!” And so, under fire, we walked sedately back to the house. My pulses were throbbing—the little swish of her dress beside me on the grass was pain and ecstasy. I had but to put out my hand to touch her, and I dared not. Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail and watched us with gleeful malignity. “Home early, aren’t you?” Alison called, when we reached the steps. “Led a club when my partner had doubled no-trumps, and she fainted. Damn the heart convention!” he said cheerfully. “The others are not here yet.” Three hours later I went up to bed. I had not seen Alison alone again. The noise was at its height below, and I glanced down into the garden, still bright in the moonlight. Leaning against a tree, and staring interestedly into the billiard room, was Johnson. CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE DINING-ROOM That was Saturday night, two weeks after the wreck. The previous five days had been full of swift-following events—the woman in the house next door, the picture in the theater of a man about to leap from the doomed train, the dinner at the Dallases’, and Richey’s discovery that Alison was the girl in the case. In quick succession had come our visit to the Carter place, the finding of the rest of the telegram, my seeing Alison there, and the strange interview with Mrs. Conway. The Cresson trip stood out in my memory for its serio-comic horrors and its one real thrill. Then—the discovery by the police of the seal-skin bag and the bit of chain; Hotchkiss producing triumphantly Stuart for Sullivan and his subsequent discomfiture; McKnight at the station with Alison, and later the confession that he was out of the running.