“Well, I’ll go there some day soon. She’s not conscious yet. In the meantime, the only thing I can do is to keep an eye, through a detective, on the people who try to approach Bronson. We’ll have the case continued, anyhow, in the hope that the stolen notes will sooner or later turn up.” “Confound this arm,” I said, paying for my energy with some excruciating throbs. “There’s so much to be looked after, and here I am, bandaged, splinted, and generally useless. It’s a beastly shame.” “Don’t forget that I am here,” said McKnight pompously. “And another thing, when you feel this way just remember there are two less desirable places where you might be. One is jail, and the other is—” He strummed on an imaginary harp, with devotional eyes. But McKnight’s light-heartedness jarred on me that morning. I lay and frowned under my helplessness. When by chance I touched the little gold bag, it seemed to scorch my fingers. Richey, finding me unresponsive, left to keep his luncheon engagement with Alison West. As he clattered down the stairs, I turned my back to the morning sunshine and abandoned myself to misery. By what strain on her frayed nerves was Alison West keeping up, I wondered? Under the circumstances, would I dare to return the bag? Knowing that I had it, would she hate me for my knowledge? Or had I exaggerated the importance of the necklace, and in that case had she forgotten me already? But McKnight had not gone, after all. I heard him coming back, his voice preceding him, and I groaned with irritation. “Wake up!” he called. “Somebody’s sent you a lot of flowers. Please hold the box, Mrs. Klopton; I’m going out to be run down by an automobile.” I roused to feeble interest. My brother’s wife is punctilious about such things; all the new babies in the family have silver rattles, and all the sick people flowers. McKnight pulled up an armful of roses, and held them out to me. “Wonder who they’re from?” he said, fumbling in the box for a card. “There’s no name—yes, here’s one.” He held it up and read it with exasperating slowness. “‘Best wishes for an early recovery. A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE.’ “Well, what do you know about that!” he exclaimed. “That’s something you didn’t tell me, Lollie.” “It was hardly worth mentioning,” I said mendaciously, with my heart beating until I could hear it. She had not forgotten, after all. McKnight took a bud and fastened it in his button-hole. I’m afraid I was not especially pleasant about it. They were her roses, and anyhow, they were meant for me. Richey left very soon, with an irritating final grin at the box. “Good-by, sir woman-hater,” he jeered at me from the door. So he wore one of the roses she had sent me, to luncheon with her, and I lay back among my pillows and tried to remember that it was his game, anyhow, and that I wasn’t even drawing cards. To remember that, and to forget the broken necklace under my head! CHAPTER XIII. FADED ROSES