“She’s tormented other people as well,” said Joe. “She grew so that she wouldn’t touch money; and once she gave away a soiled dollar bill to a beggar to get rid of it, then nearly had brain fever because she imagined she had passed on some disease to innocent people. I believe Calderon Fordyce spent a hundred just to trace that one dollar bill to have it returned to the United States Treasury and redeemed, before his wife got over the worrying about her sinfulness in passing along dirty money. I wish she’d get rid of some of it in my direction.” “Dirt to dirt,” Barnard’s sneering tone was lost on Joe, who was busy searching his empty pockets. “There is nothing discreditable to the Fordyces in what you have told me, Cooper; quite to the contrary. And while Mrs. Fordyce suffers from a curious mania, possibly superinduced by her accident, she is not mentally unbalanced, and most certainly her condition will not be inherited by her children. Janet told me she and Duncan were born before the accident.” “They may not inherit that particular craze,” acknowledged Joe. “But I tell you, man, there is insanity in the family. There is some story about Janet; I don’t know exactly what it is, but Pauline can tell you. She heard it from a schoolmate of Janet’s----” “And she heard it from someone else, and so on, and so on--bosh! utter bosh!” Barnard brought down his clenched fist on the table with a force that made the glasses ring. “If I hear you repeating this rot I’ll make Washington too hot to hold you,” and cowed by his blazing wrath, Joe mumbled a hasty promise. * * * * * Across Rock Creek the city lights were paling, and the cold gray dawn found Marjorie still crouching before the dying embers of a grate fire, where she had thrown herself on entering her bedroom some hours before. Slowly, very slowly her numbed senses grasped the significance of the occurrences of the night. Janet Fordyce was a kleptomaniac, and she, Marjorie Langdon, was branded a thief--caught with the goods! She shuddered in horror, and rubbed one cold hand over the other. Surely her God was a just God? Why was she picked out to be the victim of circumstance? First, Admiral Lawrence had believed her guilty of theft, and now Mrs. Walbridge had practically ordered her from her house as a thief. Of the theft of the codicil she could give no explanation, but she could at least clear herself of the charge of stealing the diamond sunburst by denouncing Janet. Ah, but could she? Her dazed wits invariably returned to that point in her reasoning; was she not in honor bound to shield Janet? Mrs. Fordyce had taken her word in the face of her discharge from Admiral Lawrence’s employ. Since being with Janet she had met with every courtesy and kindness, and Mrs. Fordyce had gone out of her way to make her feel at home. No, a thousand times no, she could never betray Janet.