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by others, and sitting where Mother had always sat in the drawing room, pouring China tea and watching William passing English muffins and cake, I was aware of a certain tension.
    I finally realized what it was. They were waiting for Juliette. They did not like her. They never had liked her. But she represented a new, defiant, reckless and probably immoral social order about which they were curious. When she did not appear they were disappointed.
    “I understood Mrs.—er—Ransom is staying with you.”
    “Yes. I’m sorry. She’s resting just now.”
    There was a silence. Then someone said that there was a story about a ghost in the house, and I tried to tell them that it was a matter only of crossed wires. But one of the shades, due to some defect in the catch, chose that moment to shoot to the top of the window, and Mrs. Pendexter spilled her tea in her lap!
    I was thoroughly shaken and annoyed when they all finally left. Juliette was still shut in her room, and so I had a tray supper in bed that night. And it was that night that I got the first glimpse of the mystery which later on was to puzzle the whole country, and drive me almost to despair. It was a warm evening, and I slipped on a dressing gown and went out onto the porch.
    There was a man below, on the beach. He had been looking up at the house, but when he saw me he pulled his soft hat down over his eyes and moved away.
    I was puzzled as well as uneasy, but he did not come back.
    The next day was fairly normal. Juliette appeared after breakfast in a sports outfit and topcoat, and asked me if I would walk around the pond with her. Whatever had happened she had got herself in hand, and she had lost much of the mocking contempt of her arrival. When we were out of earshot of the house she asked if I had heard from Arthur.
    “I have,” I said. “He called up yesterday while you were out. It’s just as I told you. He can’t manage it, Juliette.”
    She was silent. We walked down the path, with Chu-Chu ahead of us, and I saw that she was pale under her rouge.
    “See here, Juliette,” I said, “if you are in trouble, why not tell me about it? We can’t help you with money, but after all Arthur is a lawyer. He may be able to do something. Nobody wants you to suffer.”
    “Why not?” she said. “You both hate me. I suppose there are plenty of reasons, but you do.”
    “You’ve cost us a good deal—not only in money. There’s no reason for hatred, however. If I can help—”
    “Help how?”
    I was tired of fencing. I stopped in the path and faced her.
    “Stop it,” I said. “What is the matter, anyhow? Do you want to get married again, and is this money your price? Or are you in a real jam, as you put it?”
    “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “That’s the hell of it, Marcia. I don’t know.”
    I remember that she said very little after that. For a time she stood idly throwing pebbles into the pond and watching the circles widen and spread.
    “Like life,” she said. “A little pebble and look what it starts. The damned things go on and on.”
    Then she turned abruptly and went back to the house, alone.
    I don’t know why she stayed on after that. We know now that she had had her warning the day before. Perhaps she had convinced herself that there was nothing in it. Perhaps, too,” she still hoped to hear from Arthur or was sure that she could protect herself. Also, there was a certain recklessness in her character. She had weathered too many storms to fear this one.
    I think now that she merely conformed to her pattern, and that it was a normal one for her. Probably all of us conformed to a normal pattern, even those of us who were later to be involved. There was no criminal type among us. Desperation and despair in plenty, but with reason behind them; even if that reason was distorted. There was murder, irrational as is all murder, but it resorted to no mysterious poisons or strange weapons; it planted no misleading clues. It arose