"Wait until I explain, John. I must tell you about the surplice."

She repeated Amarilly's account of the peregrinations of the robe.

"Well?" he asked bewildered, "I don't see what that has to do with--"

"Everything. There was something of mine--" she turned a deep
crimson--"in the pocket of that surplice."

"Yours! Why, how did it get there, Colette? Was it--"

"I am not going to tell you--not until I have it back. Oh, I could die
of shame when I think who may have found it. You must get it."

"Colette," he answered gravely, "the surplice must have passed through
many hands, but if it is possible to trace this--article, I will do so.
Still, how can I make inquiries unless I know what it is?"

"You can ask them, each and all, if they found anything in the pocket,"
she replied. "And you must tell them you left it there."

"And you won't trust me, Colette? Not after my long unhappy summer. And
won't you give me an answer now to the note I wrote you last spring?"

"No; I won't tell you anything! Not until you find that."

"Be reasonable, Colette."

His choice of an adjective was most unfortunate for his cause. It was