Glen sat down, and Beth sat near, her hand upon his arm.  They had been more like companions than mere half-brother and sister, all their lives.  The bond of affection between them was exceptionally developed.

“I came up on account of your letter,” he said.  “Either my perceptive faculties are on the blink or there’s something decaying in Denmark.  It’s you for the Goddess of Liberty enlightening the unenlightened savage.  I’m from Missouri and I want you to start the ticker on the hum.”

“You know what Searle has done?” she said.  “How much do you know of what has happened?”

“Nothing.  I’ve been retired on half knowledge for a month,” said Glen.  “I haven’t been treated right.  I’m here to register a roar.  Nobody tells me you’re in the State till I read that account in the paper.  I dope it out to Searle that I am bumping the bumps, and there is nothing doing.  He shows up at last and hands me a species of coma and leaves me with twenty-five dollars!  That’s what I get.  What I’ve been doing is a longer story.  I apologize for not having seen your friend who brought the letter, but it’s up to you to apologize for a bum epistle to the Prodigal.”

“Wait a minute, Glen—­wait a minute, please; don’t go so fast,” she said, gripping tighter to his arm.  “I must get this all as straight and plain as possible.  You don’t mean to say that Searle really drugged you, or something like that—­what for?”

“I want to know,” said Glen.  “What’s the answer?  Perhaps he preferred I should not behold your Sir Cowboy Gallahad.”

“There is something going on,” she said, “something dark and horrible.  How did you happen to show Mr. Van Buren—­let him see the last page of my letter?”

“I didn’t let him see anything,” said Glen.  “I was dopy, I tell you.  I didn’t even see the letter myself.  Searle sat on the bed and read it aloud—­and lit his cigar with part of it later.”

“My letter?” she said, rising abruptly, and immediately sitting down again.  “You never saw——­ Searle got it—­read it!  Oh, the shamelessness!  Then—­it must have been Searle who made the mistake—­let Mr. Van Buren see it—­see what I wrote—­see——­ What did he read you—­read about Van—­Mr. Van Buren—­almost the last thing in the letter?”

Glen was surprised at her agitation.  He glanced at her blankly.

“Nothing,” he said.  “He read me nothing—­as I remember—­about your friend.  Was it something in particular?”

She arose again abruptly and wrung her hands in a gesture of baffled impatience.

“Oh, I don’t know what it all means!” she said.  “To think of Searle being there, and intercepting my letter!—­daring to read it!—­burning it up!—­reading you only a portion!  Of course, he didn’t read you my suspicions concerning himself?”

“Not on your half-tone,” Glen assured her.  “What’s all this business, anyway?  Put me wise, Sis, I’m groping like a blind snail in the mulligatawny.”