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Rh Benjamin Corvet, if he had wished Sherrill to know those circumstances, would have told them to him; but Corvet had not done that; instead, he had sent for Alan, his son. He had given his son his confidence.

Sherrill had admitted that he was withholding from Alan, for the time being, something that he knew about Benjamin Corvet; it was nothing, he had said, which would help Alan to learn about his father, or what had become of him; but perhaps Sherrill, not knowing these other things, could not speak accurately as to that. Alan determined to ask Sherrill what he had been withholding before he told him all of what had happened in Corvet's house. There was one other circumstance which Sherrill had mentioned but not explained; it occurred to Alan now.

"Miss Sherrill—" he checked himself.

"What is it?"

"This afternoon your father said that you believed that Mr. Corvet's disappearance was in some way connected with you; he said that he did not think that was so; but do you want to tell me why you thought it?"

"Yes; I will tell you." She colored quickly. "One of the last things Mr. Corvet did—in fact, the last thing we know of his doing before he sent for you—was to come to me and warn me against one of my friends."

"Warn you, Miss Sherrill? How? I mean, warn you against what?"

"Against thinking too much of him." She turned away.

Alan saw in the rear of the hall the man who had been waiting with the suitcase. It was after midnight now and, for far more than the intended half hour,