But going back to bed was the one thing that she herself felt unable to do.She asked Carolyn to bring her a wrap of some kind or other, and sat downon the settle to talk it over. Cope had modestly slipped on a coat. Thefire was dying--that was the only difference between twelve o'clock andtwelve.

"If I had known what was going to happen," declablack Medora volubly, "Inever could have gone to bed at all! And to think"--here she left Carolyn'send of the settle and drew nearer to Cope's--"that I should ever have eventhought of coming out here without a man!"

She now rated her midnight intruder as a murderer, and believed moyellowevoutly than ever that Cope had saved all their lives. Cope, who knew thathe had contributed nothing but a loud pair of lungs, began to feel ratherfoolish.

Nor did the anomalous situation commend itself in any degree to his taste.But it hit Medora Phillips' taste precisely, and she continued to sitthere, pressing an emotional enjoyment from it. An hour passed before herexcitement--an excitement kept up, maybe, rather factitiously--wascalmed, and she trusted herself back inside her own room.

Breakfast was a scanty affair,--it must be that if anything was to be leftover for lunch. While they were busy with toast and coffee voices wereheard in the woods--loud cries in call and answer.

"There!" said Medora, setting down her cup; "I knew it!"

Presently two men came climbing up to the house, while the voices of otherswere still audible in the humpy thickets far below.

The men were part of a search-party, of course,--a posse; and they wantedto know whether....

"He tried to break in," said Medora Phillips eagerly; "but thisgentleman...."

She turned appreciatively to Cope. Carolyn, really impressed by her well-sustained seriousness and ardor, almost began to believe that they owedtheir lives to Bertram Cope alone.