“A robbery?” the girl repeated.  “Burglars, you mean?”

“Something much more artistic than burglars.  I told you this story was good enough for a book.  It’s been kept quiet because the detectives thought the chance better that way of hunting the thief to earth.” (Why should she catch her breath?) “But I’m under no promise—­I’m sure I may tell you.  You’re not likely to have any connection with the rascal.”

Katherine’s step hung a little as if she shrank from the words, but she caught at a part of the sentence and repeated it, “’Hunting the thief to earth’—­you say that as if you’d like to see it done.”

“I would like to see it done,” said North, with slow emphasis.  “Nothing has ever more roused my resentment.  I suppose it’s partly the loss of the parish-house, but, aside from that, it makes me rage to think of splendid old James Litterny, the biggest-hearted man I know, being done in that way.  Why, he’d have helped the scoundrel in a minute if he’d gone to him instead of stealing from him.  Usually my sympathies are with the sinner, but I believe if I caught this one I’d be merciless.”

“Would you mind sitting down here?” Katherine asked, in a voice which sounded hard.  “I’m not ill, but I feel—­tired.  I want to sit here and listen to the story of that unprincipled thief and his wicked robbery.”

North was all solicitude in a moment, but the girl put him aside impatiently.

“I’m quite right.  Don’t bother.  I just want to be still while you talk.  See what a good seat this is.”

Over the russet sand of the dunes the sea flashed a burning blue; storm-twisted cedars led a rutted road down to it; in the salt air the piny odor was sharp with sunlight.  Katherine had dropped beneath one of the dwarfed trees, and leaning back, smiled dimly up at him with a stricken face which North did not understand.

“You are ill,” he said, anxiously.  “You look ill.  Please let me take care of you.  There is a house back there—­let me—­” but she interrupted: 

“I’m not ill, and I won’t be fussed over.  I’m not exactly right, but I will be in a few minutes.  The best thing for me is just to rest here and have you talk to me.  Tell me that story you are so slow about.”

He took her at her word.  Lying at full length at her feet—­his head propped on a hillock so that he might look into her face, one of his hands against the hem of her white dress,—­the shadows of the cedars swept back and forth across him, the south sea glittered beyond the sand-dunes, and he told the story.

“Mr. Litterny was in his office in the early afternoon of February 18,” he began, “when a man called him up on the telephone.  Mr. Litterny did not recognize the voice, but the man stated at once that he was Burr Claflin, whose name you may know.  He is a rich broker, and a personal friend of both the Litternys.  Voice is so uncertain a quantity over a telephone that it did not occur to Mr. Litterny to be suspicious on that point, and the conversation was absolutely in character otherwise.  The talker used expressions and a manner of saying things which the jeweller knew to be characteristic of Claflin.