"Dr. Bowman--he's our family physician, you know--is trying for a very fine position away from here, in an exclusive sanitarium. Divorce proceedings coming now would ruin his chances. But I don't know how long he can persuade Laura to hold off. She's in a strange mood; I can't make her out, myself. She disliked Gilbert; yet his death seems to have upset her frightfully." "You say she didn't like Mr. Gilbert?" "They hated each other. But--he was so peculiar--of course that wasn't strange. Many people detested him. Bron never did. He always forgave him everything because he said he was insane. Bron told you my experience--the one that made me break with Worth?" She looked at me, a level look; no shifting of color, no flutter of eyelid or throat. We were at the clubhouse steps. "Here comes the boy himself," I warned as Worth and Barbara, their arms full of ferns, rounded the turn from the little dip at the side of the grounds where the stream went through. We stood and waited for them. "You two," Ina spoke quickly to them. "Mr. Boyne's just promised to come over to dinner to-morrow night." Her glance asked me to accept the fib and the invitation. "I want both of you." "I'm going to be at your house anyhow, Ina," Barbara said, "working with Skeet painting those big banners they've tacked up out in your court. You'll have to feed us; but we'll be pretty messy. I don't know about a dinner party." "It isn't," Ina protested, smiling. "It's just what you said--feeding you. Nobody there besides yourself and Skeet but Mr. Boyne and Worth--if he'll come." "I have to go up to San Francisco to-morrow," said Worth. "But you'll be back by dinner time?" Ina added quickly. "If I make it at all." "Well, you can come just as you are, if you get in at the last minute," she said, and he and Barbara went on to carry their ferns in. When they were out of hearing, she turned and floored me with, "Mr. Vandeman has forbidden me to say this to you, but I'm going to speak. If Worth doesn't have to be told about me--and his father--I'd be glad." "If the missing leaves of the diary are ever found," I came up slowly, "he'd probably know then." I watched her as I said it. What a strange look of satisfaction in the little curves about her mouth as she spoke next: "Those leaves will never be found, Mr. Boyne. I burned them. Mr. Gilbert presented them to me as a wedding gift. He was insane, but, intending to take his own life, I think even his strangely warped conscience refused to let a lying record stand against an innocent girl who had never done him any harm." We stood silent a moment, then she looked round at me brightly with, "You're coming to dinner to-morrow night? So glad to have you. At seven o'clock. Well--if this is all, then?" and at my nod, she went up the steps, turning at the side door to smile and wave at me.