When Burton reached High Ridge, it was already late in the evening. If he had followed his inclinations, he would have gone like a shot to Rowan Street, but something that he called common sense interfered. He lost no time, however, in hunting up Watson, the chief of police. The chief was at home, and was thinking of going to bed when Burton called. He didn\'t think of it again for quite a while.

"I feel as though I was rehearsing for private theatricals," he said, with a somewhat embarrassed laugh, after Burton had gone over his plans with him in minute detail.

"That\'s all right. If we get what we want, it will be worth it. If we don\'t, we won\'t be any worse off than we are now. You understand. You will see that Underwood is taken home--not before eleven o\'clock--and that your plainclothes man stays with him from that minute until further orders. And no one must know that he is out of jail except the man with him. I\'ll see the family in the morning and explain, and I\'ll see Selby in the course of the morning and see that he knows the news. Then just an hour after he is in the house,--neither more nor less,--there is to be an alarm of fire. You will see about that. Then I\'ll see you afterwards and we\'ll decide whether to go on with it."

"I guess I\'ve got it straight," said Watson. "You are responsible for this, you know, and if anything goes wrong--"

"I\'ll take the responsibility, all right. It will be a busy day, but I rather hope something may come of it, Mr. Watson."

Watson cleared his throat discreetly. Of course if anything did come of it, he wouldn\'t mind taking the credit for the result, but since he was already committed to a theory on the subject of the High Ridge mystery, he didn\'t care to welcome any other suggestion too enthusiastically.

Burton went to his hotel, his thoughts in an excited whirl of possibilities. There was a telegram waiting for him. He tore it open, and read it twice over before he could focus his mind on it sufficiently to understand it.

"Arrive at two tomorrow private car. Be ready to go on west with me.

"Rachel Overman."

"To-morrow!" Burton said, trying to pull his thoughts together. "What in the world is the matter? Go west? Well, hardly! Is Phil worse, I wonder. Thank heaven she doesn\'t arrive in the morning. But go west to-morrow! Why, what nonsense!"

He did not stop to consider that it was exactly the sort of nonsense that he had given Rachel reason to expect of him for the last twenty years.

Burton made an early call the next day at the house on Rowan Street. Leslie Underwood was in the garden when he came up, and he stopped for a moment at the gate to enjoy the picture she made. It would be impossible for any one with sensibilities not to enjoy a painted picture of a beautiful girl bending before a bed of pansies, her summer gown of blue lawn making an effective contrast to the green grass upon which its folds rippled, and her hair bare to the sun. It would therefore have merely argued brutish insensibility on Burton\'s part if he had not felt the charm of the real thing. Perhaps, however, it would not have been necessary for him to feel it so keenly that it seemed like a hand laid hushingly upon his heart. He stood staring in a forgetfulness of himself that would have been a valued tribute to any work of art. Some instinct warned the girl; she turned her head abruptly and then, when she saw him, she rose and came toward him, strewing the gathered pansies like many-colored jewels along the sod.

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"He stopped for a moment at the gate to enjoy the picture she made." Page 250.

"Oh, you\'re back!" she exclaimed.

It was so indisputable a statement of fact that he did not attempt an answer. But perhaps she did not notice the omission, for as she withdrew her hand from his she asked gayly: "Well, what luck?"

"I\'ll tell you, to-morrow."

"Then you have found something?"

"This is the time, Miss Underwood, when I can properly assume the air of inscrutable mystery which belongs by all tradition to the astute detective. If I had really been up in my part I should have assumed it long ago, instead of revealing my actual ignorance so recklessly. It\'s rather late in the day to begin to be mysterious, I admit, but I am disposed to claim the privilege for the next twenty-four hours."

She watched him eagerly. "Something is brewing!"

"Hum,--possibly. But please observe that I don\'t say there is."

"I shall watch you."

"I am flattered by your notice. I begin to perceive that I have been even more improvident than I guessed in letting the opportunity to be mysteriously interesting slip until now."

She laughed, and stooped to gather her forgotten pansies.

"I believe it\'s good news! I know you are hopeful, because you are gay."

"Perhaps I am gay merely to hide a perturbed heart."

She looked up quickly, questioningly.

"Have you heard from Philip lately? Or his mother?" she asked. The question may have been suggested by his words or it may not.

"I received a telegram from Mrs. Overman last night. She says she is to be here to-morrow on her way west."

"Here? Oh!" The girl looked startled. "Must I see her?"

"Would you rather not?"

"Oh, I could not bear to see her--yet."

"Then you need not," said Burton promptly, reckless of Rachel\'s feelings on the subject. "She is only going through the town, and very likely may not leave her car."

"You are not going on with her?" she asked, with sudden alarm.

"Oh, no, indeed!"

Then, as an afterthought, she asked: "Is Philip with her?"

"She didn\'t say. She doesn\'t tell me more than she thinks is good for me to know. But I have a bit of news for you. Henry is coming home this morning."

"Oh! How is that?"

"He is under guard, of course. But even so it will be a pleasant change for him. But it is not to be spoken of outside of the house."

She looked puzzled. "That\'s all I am to know?"

"At present."

"Very well," she said, with a sweet meekness that made him laugh, but with a curious catch at his heart. It is dangerous for a woman to play at meekness! She recovered herself quickly, and struck gayly into another theme. "Guess who\'s engaged!"

They had been walking up the path to the house, but at this he stopped short. "Engaged? Here? Some one I know?"

"Yes!"

"Not your brother?"

"Henry? Why, no. What made you think of him? It\'s Mr. Selby!"

"And Miss Hadley?" he asked, in dismay.

"Yes! How clever of you! How did you guess?"

"Wait a minute. Don\'t go in just yet," said Burton, stopping at the door. He led her aside to a garden bench which stood against the wall. "I want to consider this. Tell me all you know about it."

"There is nothing more to tell. Mr. Selby hasn\'t called for our congratulations. But the report is abroad."

"Does your brother know it?"

"I don\'t know." She looked up with obvious surprise. "Why? Why do you speak of him?"

"Did it never occur to you that Henry and Selby hated each other so bitterly because they both cared for Miss Hadley?"

"Henry? Oh, impossible!"

"Not impossible at all, I assure you."

"Why, he hardly knows her."

"How long is it necessary to know a person before falling in love?"

"I have no statistics on the subject."

"Well, my word for it, it doesn\'t take very long sometimes. And my word for it, Henry was in love with Miss Hadley. I wish we might keep him from hearing this news for a while."

"Why, you don\'t think Henry will shoot Selby at sight for carrying off his girl, do you?" she laughed.

"You are a heartless girl to laugh about it. Having some one else carry off the girl you love is a much more serious matter than you seem to realize. But I am not worrying about Selby. To be sure, It would look pretty bad for Henry if Selby were assassinated the first day he was out of jail, but Mr. Selby is under the special protection of the powers of mischief who are running things here, and I have no anxiety on his behalf."

"Mrs. Bussey says that the milkman says that the Hadleys\' housemaid says that Minnie was up in her room crying all day yesterday," said Leslie mischievously.

"For goodness\' sake, don\'t let Henry hear that," exclaimed Burton. But the name reminded him of Mrs. Bussey\'s specialty, and he glanced rather anxiously at the open drawing-room windows under which they had been sitting. Was it his fancy, or did the curtain stir with something more palpable than the wind? What a situation for this girl to live in! It was intolerable.

He was looking at her so intently that she looked up as though he had spoken.

"What is it?" she asked swiftly. "You are hiding something from me!"

"I am trying to," he said, recovering himself. "I think my only chance of succeeding is in keeping away from you. Where is your father?"

"In the surgery, I think."

"I\'m going in to speak to him." He left her a little abruptly and went to the front door where Mrs. Bussey admitted him with her old air of curiosity struggling with timid resentment. Burton returned her look with keen interest. Had she been listening at the window?

"How do you do, Mrs. Bussey? And how\'s Ben? I\'m coming up to see him in a minute. I have a little present from an old Indian who used to know him."

Mrs. Bussey relaxed into a smile, and hurried away, and Burton went on to the surgery to find the doctor.

"I don\'t dare say that my soul is my own in this house without first making sure that Mrs. Bussey won\'t overhear me and betray the damaging secret to my dearest enemy," he said, as he shook hands. "She is always at hand when I am indiscreet. I wanted to tell you privately and with the utmost secrecy that Henry is coming home this morning,--very soon. It is a part of a little scheme I am working out. He is really to be kept under the strictest surveillance. I wanted to explain this so that you would understand the presence of the stranger who will accompany him more or less inconspicuously, and not make any remarks in regard to him,--say in the hearing of Mrs. Bussey!"

"You are very mysterious."

"I am engaged in the services of a very mysterious family. The point is simply that Henry is to seem free, and yet is really to be under close guard, and that nobody is to say anything about anything, but simply lie low and wait! You understand?"

"I don\'t understand a thing."

"That will do just as well, provided you are content to remain in that state."

"Does Henry understand that he is to be watched?"

"Oh, of course." Burton glanced at his watch, and rose. But the doctor detained him.

"What about that basket? Did anything come of that?" he asked eagerly.

"I found the old squaw who made it."

"Well?"

"Well!"

"What of it?"

Burton shook his he............