"It's something I can't explain. But as you were a friend of hers
----"

A man came by, and Patty broke off.



CHAPTER VIII


Hilliard waited for her to continue, but Patty kept her eyes down
and said no more.

"Did you think," he asked, "that I was likely to be in Miss
Madeley's confidence?"

"You've known her a long time, haven't you?"

This proof of reticence, or perhaps of deliberate misleading, on
Eve's part astonished Hilliard. He replied evasively that he had
very little acquaintance with Miss Madeley's affairs, and added:

"May she not simply have changed her lodgings?"

"Why should she go so suddenly, and without letting me know?"

"What had the landlady to say?"

"She heard her tell the cab to drive to Mudie's--the library, you