Then Anthony came out of his room, looking handsome and sleek and brown and very well dressed in blue serge; and they went out and had luncheon together, and then started at once for their drive of a hundred miles in Anthony's car. She answered all his questions--and one he did not ask. She volunteered: "I must confess, Anthony, when I first saw this girl--saw how unsuitable she was--I felt your wonderful judgment must have been clouded by your having fallen in love with her." "Recollect, please," he returned, "that even if it had been the girl I saw, I had only seen her once." "Don't people fall in love at first sight?" Anthony smiled. "I don't," he said; and he went on to describe the slow process by which a love which can be depended on to last must necessarily grow. To Miss Wellington, who had known Anthony for fifteen years, the description was perfectly satisfactory. They reached Edna's house a little after five. Dolly had gone away the day before to soothe her wounded feelings at a house party in the Adirondacks. Durland was playing golf and Antonia having supper with her friend Olive. Edna alone received the traveler. She did not reproach him; she gave him the greeting of a woman simply crushed by anxiety. He said, "I'm awfully sorry about this, Edna. You've had a disagreeable time--aside from the pearls, I mean." She raised her large sullen eyes. "If only you had not made me promise, Tony--so that I was not free to turn a thief out of my house until she had actually stolen my valuables. A woman has an intuition when she's allowed to follow it." He had not a word to say in answer. He had an interview with the detective--the head man, Mr. Albertson; the other one was engaged in watching Miss Exeter--the false Miss Exeter, who was sitting, as her custom was of an afternoon, on the beach. It was this habit of sitting for hours alone on the beach that had led to the theory that the pearls were hidden there, waiting the right opportunity to be dug up and dispatched to a confederate.