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“I didn’t think you would have.”

Aunt Ruth gave a very disagreeable laugh, through which a thin, discordant note of triumph sounded. One might have thought that, under all her anger, something pleased Aunt Ruth. It is pleasant to be justified in the opinion we have always entertained of anybody. “Well, perhaps you will be so good as to answer some questions. How did this fellow get here?”

“Window,” said Perry laconically, seeing that Emily was not going to answer.

“I was not asking you, sir. Go,” said Aunt Ruth, pointing dramatically to the window.

“I’m not going to stir a step out of this room until I see what you're going to do to Emily,” said Perry stubbornly.

“I,” said Aunt Ruth, with an air of terrible detachment, “am not going to do anything to Emily.”

“Mrs. Dutton, be a good sport,” implored Perry coaxingly. “It’s all my fault—honest! Emily wasn’t one bit to blame. You see, it was this way———”

But Perry was too late.

“I have asked my niece for an explanation and she has refused to give it. I do not choose to listen to yours.”

“But—” persisted Perry.

“You had better go, Perry,” said Emily, whose face was flying danger signals. She spoke quietly, but the Murrayest of all Murrays could not have expressed a more definite command. There was a quality in it Perry dared not disregard. He meekly scrambled out of the window into the night. Aunt Ruth stepped forward and shut the window. Then, ignoring Emily utterly, she marched her pink flanneled little figure back upstairs.

Emily did not sleep much that night—nor, I admit, did she deserve to. After her sudden anger died away, shame cut her like a whip. She realised that she had behaved very foolishly in refusing an explanation to Aunt Ruth. Aunt Ruth had a right to it, when such a situation developed in her own house, no matter how hateful and