With a sensation of horror Miss Althea realized that at last she was in a murder case in spite of herself!  This lad, the brother of Katie, the waitress whom she had discharged!  How curious!  And how unfortunate!  His charge was preposterous; nevertheless a faint blush stole to her cheek and she looked away.

“How ridiculous!” she managed to say.  “It was no part of my obligation to look after her!  How could I?”

His hawk’s eyes watched her every tremor.

“Did ye not lock her out the night of the ball when she went wid McGurk?”

“I—­how absurd!”

Suddenly she faltered.  An indistinct accusing recollection turned her faint—­of the housekeeper having told her that one of the girls insisted on going to a dance on an evening not hers by arrangement, and how she had given orders that the house should be closed the same as usual at ten o’clock for the night.  If the girl couldn’t abide by the rules of the Beekman menage she could sleep somewhere else.  What of it?  Supposing she had done so?  She could not be held responsible for remote, unreasonable and discreditable consequences!

And then by chance Shane O’Connell made use of a phrase that indirectly saved his life, a phrase curiously like the one used on a former occasion by Dawkins to Miss Althea: 

“Katie was a member of your household; ye might have had a bit of thought for her!” he asserted bitterly.

Dawkins had said:  “You’d think a girl would have some consideration for her employer, if nothing else.  In a sense she is a guest in the house and should behave herself as such.”

There was no sense in it!  There was no parallel, no analogy.  There was no obligation to treat the girl as a guest, even though the girl should have acted like one.  Miss Beekman knew it.  And yet there was—­something!  Didn’t she owe some sort of duty at any rate toward those in her employment—­those who slept under her roof?

“’Twould have been better to have been kind to her then than to be kind to me now!” said he with sad conviction.

The proud Miss Althea Beekman, the dignified descendant of a long line of ancestors, turned red.  Heretofore serenely confident of her own personal virtue and her own artificial standards of democracy, she now found herself humiliated and chagrined before this rough young criminal.

“You—­are—­quite right!” she confessed, her eyes smarting with sudden tears.  “My position is quite—­quite illogical.  But of course I had no idea!  Please, please let me try to help you—­if I can—­and Katie, too—­if it isn’t too late.”

Shane O’Connell experienced contrition.  After all it was not seemly that the likes of him should be dictating to the likes of her.  And he could never abide seeing a woman—­particularly a pretty woman—­cry.

“Forgive me, madam!” he begged, lowering his head.

“You were quite justified in all you said!” she assured him.  “Please tell me everything that has happened.  I have influence with the district attorney and—­in other places.  No doubt I can be of assistance to you.  Of course, you can absolutely trust me!”