Burton awoke the next morning in a new frame of mind. His half reluctant interest in the Underwood situation had suddenly been touched with enthusiasm. If Henry was innocent, then the whole thing was a hideous conspiracy that cried to heaven to be exposed. The fact that it was not taking place in past historic times or in distant lands, but here in a commonplace town of the middle west in the light of newspapers, police regulations and prevalent respectability,--all this made it more interesting to him, instead of more prosaic. It was a real and vital situation, not an imaginable possibility. If Henry was in truth innocent, if the doctor was the guileless child of light that he seemed, if Miss Leslie had been involved in all this tangle by a cruel trick of Fate\'s, then certainly here was work waiting for him. He was no detective, but neither was this the ordinary melodrama of crime. It was rather a psychological problem, and it was just possible that he was better fitted to get at the truth of the matter than a professional who would have less human interest in the persons involved.

First of all, he would see Miss Hadley. He wanted to verify his guess that Henry\'s presence in the neighborhood last night was something that she could very well explain if she wanted to. And if that proved true, then Henry\'s wanderings on the night of the fire might easily have been in the same direction. Burton could not deny that it would ease his mind to have that point settled!

Miss Hadley came into the reception room with a nervous flutter in her manner and a startled look in her soft eyes. She was a pretty girl, of an excessively feminine type,--all soft coloring and timid grace. Certainly she was a pleasant thing to look upon, yet Burton\'s heart rather sank as he stood up to meet her. "She hasn\'t the backbone to stand by a man," he thought to himself, with a swift recognition of what Henry was going to need. But aloud he said: "I took the liberty of calling to inquire about your father. I hope that his trying experiences last night have not had any serious effects."

"He has gone down to the bank," she answered. "He felt that he ought to take the risk."

"Risk? What is he afraid of?"

"Why, anything might happen, after last night," she said, opening her eyes wide upon him.

"I\'m glad to hear you say that," said Burton quickly, "because it indicates that you--and I hope your father--do not share the foolish idea that Henry Underwood was in any way responsible for that outrage."

Her eyes filled with quick tears at the name. "They say he did it," she murmured.

"But you don\'t believe that," he said reassuringly. "You know that he has been arrested and put in jail, yet you say that your father fears other possible attacks. Of course if Mr. Underwood were the one, there would be no further danger, now that he is locked up! So I infer that your father is satisfied that it was some one else."

But anything so logical as this bit of reasoning found no response in Miss Hadley\'s mind. She looked at him from brimming violet eyes that, Burton confessed to himself with some cynicism, would have made anything like common sense seem an impertinence to him if he had been fifteen years younger.

"Papa says that he must have done it," she persisted. "He never did like Hen-- Mr. Underwood."

"But I am sure that any personal dislike will not prevent his being fair to him in a case like this. You can help, you know. You can tell your father quite frankly why Mr. Underwood was found loitering in the garden. That will clear him of the most serious part of the evidence against him."

"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, looking at him in a kind of terror and half rising, as though she would flee from the room.

"Mr. Underwood came here last night to see you, didn\'t he?" he asked, in a matter-of-course tone.

The ready tears overflowed the brimming violets, and though she dabbed them away with a trifle that she called a handkerchief, they continued to well up and overflow, while she kept her eyes fixed upon him.

"I--I was going away. Papa said that I had to go to my aunt in Williamston, so--that Hen-- Mr. Underwood c--could not come and see me. And he c--couldn\'t even come to say goodbye, so he came to the garden, and--and--I was afraid some one might see him if he kept hanging around,--it wasn\'t my fault,--he wouldn\'t pay attention to me when I told him never to come again,--"

"So you went down to the garden to say goodbye to him," said Burton, cheerfully. "Well, that was kind of you, and I don\'t think for my part that you could have done any less. He loves you and you love him and you had a right to say goodbye to him before you went away. Of course you would stand up for him, just as he would stand up for you. I understand!"

Miss Hadley was so surprised by this mode of attack that she could only stare at him in silence.

"Now the point that I want you to tell me," Burton continued, "is just when you left Mr. Underwood in the garden and returned to the house."

She continued to stare in fascinated terror.

"You came in through the window in the drawing-room, didn\'t you?"

She made the slightest possible sign of assent.

"And you went directly up to your room?"

"Yes."

"And then when the wind came up you remembered that you had left the window open and you went back to close it. Is that it?"

"Y--yes."

"And then when you got into the hall, what was it that called your attention to your father\'s room? Was his door open?"

She nodded. "There was a light. I was afraid that he was up and would hear me in the hall, so I peeked through the crack--" She stopped, but she was not weeping now. She evidently saved her tears for her own troubles.

"And then you saw him tied up in bed and you began to scream,--which was the very best thing you could have done, my dear Miss Hadley. How long were you in your room before you remembered about the window?"

"I--don\'t know."

"You had not begun to undress."

She gave him a startled look.

"I noticed that you we............