Terry did not come down for dinner. It was more or less of a calamity¹, for the board was quite full of early guests for the next day's festivities. Aunt Elizabeth shifted the burden of the entertainment onto the capable shoulders of Vance, who could please these Westerners when he chose. Tonight he decidedly chose. Elizabeth had never see him in such high spirits. He could flirt² good-humoredly and openly across the table at Nelly, or else turn and draw an anecdote³ from Nelly's father. He kept the reins⁴ in his hands and drove the talk along so smoothly⁵ that Elizabeth could sit in gloomy silence, unnoticed, at the farther end of the table. Her mind was up yonder in the room of Terry.  
Something had happened, and it had come through that long business envelope with the typewritten address that seemed so harmless. One reading of the contents had brought Terry out of his chair with an exclamation⁶. Then, without explanation of any sort, he had gone to his room and stayed there. She would have followed to find out what was the matter, but the requirements of dinner and her guests kept her downstairs.
 
Immediately after dinner Vance, at a signal from her, dexterously⁷ herded⁸ everyone into the living room and distributed them in comfort around the big fireplace; Elizabeth Cornish bolted straight for the room of Terence. She knocked and tried the door. To her astonishment⁹, the knob turned, but the door did not open. She heard the click and felt the jar of the bolt. Terry had locked his door!
 
A little thing to make her heart fall, one would say, but little things about Terry were great things to Elizabeth. In twenty-four years he had never locked his door. What could it mean?
 
It was a moment before she could call, and she waited breathlessly. She was reassured¹⁰ by a quiet voice that answered her: "Just a moment. I'll open."
 
The tone was so matter-of-fact that her heart, with one leap, came back to normal and tears of relief misted her eyes for an instant. Perhaps he was up here working out a surprise for the next day—he was full of tricks and surprises. That was unquestionably it. And he took so long in coming to the door because he was hiding the thing he had been working on. As for food, Wu Chi was his slave and would have smuggled¹¹ a tray up to him. Presently the lock turned and the door opened.
 
She could not see his face distinctly at first, the light was so strong behind him. Besides, she was more occupied in looking for the tray of food which would assure her that Terry was not suffering from some mental crisis that had made him forget even dinner. She found the tray, sure enough, but the food had not been touched.
 
She turned on him with a new rush of alarm. And all her fears were realized. Terry had been fighting a hard battle and he was still fighting. About his eyes there was the look, half-dull and half-hard, that comes in the eyes of young people unused to pain. A worried, tense, hungry face. He took her arm and led her to the table. On it lay an article clipped out of a magazine. She looked down at it with unseeing eyes. The sheets were already much crumbled¹². Terry turned them to a full- page picture, and Elizabeth found herself looking down into the face of Black Jack¹³, proud, handsome, defiant¹⁴.
 
Had Vance been there, he might have recognized her actions. As she had done one day twenty-four years ago, now she turned and dropped heavily into a chair, her bony hands pressed to her shallow bosom¹⁵. A moment later she was on her feet again, ready to fight, ready to tell a thousand lies. But it was too late. The revelation had been complete and she could tell by his face that Terence knew everything.
 
"Terry," she said faintly, "what on earth have you to do with that—"
 
"Listen, Aunt Elizabeth," he said, "you aren't going to fib about it, are you?"
 
"What in the world are you talking about?"
 
"Why were you so shocked?"
 
She knew it was a futile¹⁶ battle. He was prying¹⁷ at her inner mind with short questions and a hard, dry voice.
 
"It was the face of that terrible man. I saw him once before, you know.
On the day—"
"On the day he was murdered!"
 
That word told her everything. "Murdered!" It lighted all the mental processes through which he had been going. Who in all the reaches of the mountain desert had ever before dreamed of terming the killing¹⁸ of the notorious Black Jack a "murder"?
 
"What are you saying, Terence? That fellow—"
 
"Hush¹⁹! Look at us!"
 
He picked up the photograph and stood back so that the light fell sharply on his face and on the photograph which he held beside his head. He caught up a sombrero a............