“I can’t tell you here. You must come up to the inn.” He led her back up the hill. Chapter XIII. Irons in the Fire 1 Up in his little, low-ceilinged, oak-panelled sitting-room in the Bear and Key, Anthony sat the girl in the one arm-chair. She refused whisky so pleadingly that he ordered tea. When it had come and the bearer departed, he sat on the table and watched her drink. “Now,” he said, “suppose you tell me all about it,” and was immediately smitten with very fragrant memories of another occasion when he had used that phrase. Dora Masterson said simply: “I was frightened. Oh, so horribly, _horribly_ frightened!” Anthony was puzzled. “But why just now? Surely you must have felt like this as soon as you heard?” “N-no. Of course it was—terrible! But Lucia told me what you said, Mr. Gethryn—and she—she seemed to so absolutely _believe_ that you would make everything all right that I—I tried to believe too.” Anthony’s heart gave a leap that startled him. The girl went on, struggling for control. “But—but it was when I heard about the end of the inquest—that he was actually in—— Oh, it’s too awful! It’s too _terrible!_” She swayed about in the big chair, hands hiding her face, the slim shoulders twisting as if her pain were bodily. Again was Anthony puzzled. Something in the tone told him that here was something he had not heard of. And this tendency to hysteria must be stopped. “What d’you mean? Explain!” he said sharply. She sat upright at that, her face working. “I mean that—that—if only I hadn’t been a senseless, vicious little fool; if—if only I hadn’t be-behaved like a b-beastly schoolgirl, Archie wouldn’t—wouldn’t be in that awful place! Oh! why was I ever born!” She pressed her hands to her face and doubled up in the chair until her forehead rested on her knees. “I’m afraid I don’t understand yet,” said Anthony. She raised her head. “Weren’t you at the inquest?” she asked, dabbing at her swollen eyes with the back of a hand like the schoolgirl she had named herself. “Not exactly,” said Anthony, and wondered how many more times he would have to answer this question. “Why, then you—you don’t know that—that Archie s-said he went out for a walk during the time when the—the Thing must have been done. And the _beasts_ d-don’t believe him because nobody at all saw him while he was out!” “I still don’t——” She broke in on his sentence with a flood of speech, springing to her feet. “Oh, you fool, you fool!” she cried. “_I_ ought to have seen him! _I_, _I_, _I!_ _I_ was to have met him down there on the bank, this side, by the bridge. We’d arranged a walk! And then because _I_ thought _I_ was some one; because _I_ thought he had been rude to _me_ that afternoon, I must needs think _I_ would punish _him_! And I didn’t go! I didn’t meet him! I stayed at home! Christ help me, I stayed at home!”