"You're tired, Mrs. Rutherford," he said, gravely. "Let's rest a minute over there." She assented, with a whimsical nod, and allowed Peter to place her comfortably upon the rock. Peter remained standing just in front of her and regarded her in silence for a moment. There was a seriousness in his pleasant, homely face that caught her attention. "What is it, Mr. Clancy?" she asked, with a hint of perplexity in her deep voice. "Why do you look at me as if--why, as if you wanted to ask me a question and didn't quite know what to say----" "That's just it, Mrs. Rutherford," said Peter, eagerly. "That's just my trouble. There's something I want to know--something I must know----" "And you think I can tell you?" she asked, wonderingly. "I _know_ you can tell me, Mrs. Rutherford--if you will." She gazed up at him in sheer bewilderment. "I can't think what it can be," she said, conscious of the gravity of the young face before her, "and I won't promise to answer. But I'm curious to know. Ask your question, Mr. Clancy." Peter bent his head and said, slowly, with pauses between the words: "Will you tell me, Mrs. Rutherford, why--on Monday, the twenty-ninth of this May--from a pay booth in the Vanderbilt Hotel--you called Mary Blake's apartment--and asked to speak to her sister, Anne?" CHAPTER XXII "ON MONDAY, THE TWENTY-NINTH OF MAY----" A slow flush spread over the face of Kate Rutherford, mounting to her snow-white hair. Her eyes never left Peter's. "On Monday, the twenty-ninth of May, from the Vanderbilt Hotel," she repeated, slowly. "Yes, I did call--I did call her apartment, one day, about that time. Well"--a slight pause--"well, what of it? What of it, Mr. Clancy?" "Don't you know--why, you must know from yesterday's paper, Mrs. Rutherford, that it was on Sunday, the twenty-eighth, that Mary Blake disappeared." "And you think"--she studied his face intently--"you think I may know where she's gone?" "It would seem on the cards, perhaps." "Well, I don't." She threw out her clenched hands and looked up at him. There was deep concern in her eyes. "I wish to God I did." Was she acting? Peter thought. And if so, why? Aloud he said: "How was it that you happened to call her on that particular day, Mrs. Rutherford? And why did you cut off so suddenly when----" "It was you--it was you who answered the call!" she exclaimed, a little light breaking in upon her. "What have you to do with this affair, Mr. Clancy? Why should I answer your questions? I don't see----" "You're a friend of Donald Morris's, an old and intimate friend," said Peter, gravely. "You must be affected, deeply affected, I should think, by the sight of his unhappiness."