"You were there? Impossible! That is against the rules. Not a man of the Circle would have permitted it, and you certainly would have been discovered before you reached the assembly hall. Why, I myself was the last to arrive. Frederic, you remember, had to speed the car a little to get me there. And I looked back from the door and saw you in the tonneau with Elizabeth, while Mrs. Weatherbee kept her place in front with Frederic. You were going down the boulevard to spend the evening with her at Vivian Court." "That was our plan, but we turned back," she explained. "We had a curiosity to see the Circle seated around the banquet board in those ridiculous purple parkas. And Frederic bet me a new electric runabout against the parka of silver fox and the mukluks I bought of the Esquimau girl at Valdez that we never could get as far as the assembly room. He waited with Elizabeth in the car while we two crept up the stairs. The door was open, and we stood almost screened by that portière of Indian leather, peeping in. Mr. Tisdale was telling the ptarmigan yarn--it's wonderful the power he has to hold the interest of a crowd of men--and the chance was too good to miss. We stole on up the steps to the gallery,--no one noticed us,--and concealed ourselves behind that hanging Kodiak bearskin." "Incredible!" exclaimed Feversham. "But I see you arrived at the opportune moment,--when Tisdale was talking. There's something occult about the personality of that man. And she, Mrs. Weatherbee, heard everything?" Marcia nodded. "Even your graceful toast to her." At this he settled back in his seat, laughing. "Well, I am glad I made it. I could hardly have put it more neatly had I known she was there." "She couldn't have missed a word. We had found a bench behind the Kodiak skin, and she sat straight as a soldier, listening through it all. I couldn't get her to come away; it was as though she was looking on at an interesting play. She was just as neutral and still; only her face turned white, and her eyes were wide as stars, and once she gripped the fur of the Kodiak so hard I expected to see it come down. But I know she failed to grasp the vital point of the story. I mean the point vital to her. She doesn't understand enough about law. And I myself slept on it the night through before I saw. It came the moment I wakened this morning, clear and sudden as an electric flash. If David Weatherbee was mentally unbalanced when he made that transfer, the last half interest in the Aurora mine ought to revert to her."