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THAT ROYLE GIRL

room, she left the door open and also left ajar the bedroom door after she entered.

"Mamma! Mamma!" Calvin heard her say; and for a few moments she tried to arouse her mother, but the drugged sleep proved too deep; so she stirred the man.

"Dads! Dads! . . . Dads! The police are taking me away. I want to tell you. Listen, Dads. The police are here—the police—"

"Here?" said a man's thick voice. 'Sorry, m'dear. Sorry," he apologized stupidly. "Wouldn't've had it happ'n for worlds, Joan—not f'r worlds."

"You didn't, Dads. It's about Ket, this time. Ket—he's in trouble. The police think I know something about it; so they're taking me away. Not to the station, to a hotel; just to a hotel, Dads; that's what they say. That's all. Don't think about it now; go back to sleep. Only—only remember in the morning."

She came from the room, her eyes blinking in the light. "He'll remember, I think; but I'd better leave him a note, too," she said to Clarke and crossed to a desk where she wrote for a minute before she asked: "What hotel are you sending me to?"

"I'll let him know later," Calvin answered.

She gazed at him steadily, her lips quivering; then she finished her note and asked him, "Do you want to See it?"

"No," said Calvin, feeling uneasy. "That's all right."

She set to packing her night-clothes and toilet articles in a little leather bag and Calvin watched her hands at work, deftly folding, arranging and pressing things into place while she thought about them not at all.

"What are you doing with him?" she asked, suddenly, not glancing up at Calvin, but staring at the floor as though she could peer through to the apartment below.

"We have not fully decided yet," Calvin answered.