"Well, you can come just as you are, if you get in at the last minute," she said, and he and Barbara went on to carry their ferns in. When they were out of hearing, she turned and floored me with,
"Mr. Vandeman has forbidden me to say this to you, but I'm going to speak. If Worth doesn't have to be told about me—and his father—I'd be glad."
"If the missing leaves of the diary are ever found," I came up slowly, "he'd probably know then." I watched her as I said it. What a strange look of satisfaction in the little curves about her mouth as she spoke next:
"Those leaves will never be found, Mr. Boyne. I burned them. Mr. Gilbert presented them to me as a wedding gift. He was insane, but, intending to take his own life, I think even his strangely warped conscience refused to let a lying record stand against an innocent girl who had never done him any harm."
We stood silent a moment, then she looked round at me brightly with,
"You're coming to dinner to-morrow night? So glad to have you. At seven o'clock. Well—if this is all, then?" and at my nod, she went up the steps, turning at the side door to smile and wave at me.
What a woman! I could but admire her nerve. If her alibi proved copper-fastened, as something told me it would, I had no more hope of bringing home the murder of Thomas Gilbert to Mrs. Bronson Vandeman of Santa Ysobel than I had of readjusting the stars in their courses!