Oh, she was a girl all right!--so Howard's thoughts ran as he drove home in the mist that had thickened into rain; Fred was a girl--a trembling, ignorant, frightened feminine creature! Suppose she did support a dead woman in her arms during that dreadful ride in the fog; suppose she did stand by, promptly obedient to the doctor's orders in that frantic time of endeavor in the office; suppose she had decided, quietly and wisely, exactly what was to be done, when it was plain that Flora's poor, melancholy little life had flown; suppose the coroner did say that he had never seen such nerve; suppose all those things--yet she had said those two pitiful words: "_Don't tell._" Yes, Fred Payton was a "girl"! "You can talk all you want to about the 'new woman,'" Howard said, "I guess human nature doesn't change much...." It changes so little, that at that revealing instant on the Paytons' front steps, with the light of the Egyptian maid's globe streaming out into the rain, he had wanted to put his arms around Freddy and kiss her! Who knows but what, if there had not been all those weeks of rocking about on the mud flats, listening to the eternal dry rustle of the blowing palms, dredging for shells, and bothering about Jack McKnight, he might not, then and there, in spite of the wonderfulness of her, and because of the weakness of her, have fallen in love with old Freddy? As it was, when she said that piteous, feminine thing, the tears had stung in his eyes; he wrung her hand, stammering out: "_Never!_ Why, I--you--" But the door closed in his face, and he went back to climb into his motor and go off to his own house. That was at six o'clock; it was nine before Mr. and Mrs. Childs--summoned, to Billy-boy's great annoyance, while he was shaving--reached No. 15. They found Mrs. Holmes there ahead of them, and met Mr. Weston on the door-step. In the parlor, watched by Andy Payton's sightless eyes, the court sat upon Freddy--for, of course, the whole distressing affair was her fault--she had dragged poor, crazy Flora out to that shocking camp! "I said last spring it was perfec' nonsense," Mr. Childs vociferated--"a girl, renting a bungalow! Why did you allow it, Ellen?" "My dear William! I was perfectly helpless. Girls do anything nowadays. When I was a young lady--" "_My_ girl doesn't do 'anything,'" Laura's father said; "as for Freddy, the newspapers will ring with it! Pleasant for me. My niece, alone with that Maitland fellow! I've always distrusted him. Going off to dig shells--a man with his income! That showed there's something queer about him. And Fred alone with him in that bungalow mixed up with a murder!" Mrs. Holmes screamed. "Well, suicide. Same thing. It will all come out," said Billy-boy, standing up with his back to the fire and puffing; "Bessie is really sick at the scandal." "Oh, now, Father, I--" "He's got to marry her," said Mrs. Holmes.