"Well, I wish I didn't know where I was. I wish I wasn't anywhere." He
looked at her, and then dropped his eyes, with the effect of giving up a
hopeless conundrum.

But he asked: "What's the matter?"

She scanned him keenly before she answered: "Something that I should like
to tell you--that you ought to know. Alan, do you think you are fit to
judge of a very serious matter?"

He laughed pathetically. "I don't believe I'm in a very judicial frame of
mind to-night, Bess. To-morrow--"

"Oh, to-morrow! Where will you be to-morrow?"

"That's true! Well, what is it? I'll try to listen. But if you knew how
my nerves were going." His eyes wandered from hers back to the decanters.
"If I had just one glass--"

"I'll have one, too," she said, with a motion toward the decanter next
her.

He threw up his arms. "Oh well, go on. I'll listen as well as I can." He
sank down in his chair and stretched his little feet out toward the fire.
"Go on!"

She hesitated before she began. "Do you know who brought you home last
night, Alan?"

"Yes," he answered, quickly, "Westover."