detective had studiously shut him out of the conversation.

"What am I to say?" she cried. "Do you want a list of all the young men
who make sheep's eyes at me?"

"No. I can get that from the Census Bureau. Come, now, Miss Martin. _You_
know. Has any man in the village led you to suspect, shall we put it?
that sometime or other, he might ask you to become his wife?"

Lo, and behold! Doris's pretty eyes filled with tears. Superintendent
Fowler was so pleased at hearing Scotland Yard introducing a
parenthetical query into its sentences that he, sitting opposite, was
taken aback when Winter said in a fatherly way:

"I've been rather clumsy, I'm afraid. But it cannot be helped. I must go
blundering on. I'm groping in the dark, you know, but it's a thousand
pities I shall have to tread on _your_ toes."

"It isn't that," sobbed Doris. "I hate to put my thoughts into words.
That's all. There _is_ a man whom I'm--afraid of."

"Siddle?"

She turned on Winter a face of sudden awe.

"How can you possibly guess?" she said wonderingly, and sheer
bewilderment dried her tears.

"My business is nine-tenths guesswork. At any rate, we are on firm ground
now. If you could please yourself, I suppose, Mr. Siddle would not come