“Yes.”

“She would not be apt to return to the Letheny cottage,” he mused. “Let me see; it is barely seven o’clock—the stores will not be open for another hour. There is plenty of time.”

“The stores?”

“She will go straight to buy a hat,” he explained with remarkable lack of tact. “Corole Letheny is not going far in a hat that——” He noted my unsympathetic countenance. “A hat that—er—does not suit her. I mean that she did not choose herself,” he amended hastily.

Without saying a word I turned toward the gravelled path that leads back to St. Ann’s.

“Wait a minute, Miss Keate,” begged O’Leary contritely, seeing perhaps that he had offended me in a matter that no woman can freely forgive. “Please, wait. If you’ll forgive me I’ll tell you something of interest.”

Being exceedingly curious I went back. He drew me into the shadow of a big gray ambulance.

“I want you to keep an eye on Miss Day,” he said in a low voice and with an odd glance into the shadows of the place.

“Miss Day!”

“Especially if you see this fellow, Gainsay, hanging around.”