Mr. Lorburn, leaning on his stick, emitted a faint groan. "The young man, as he says himself, appears to have forgotten everything—even to return the books he has taken from here."

Again Mrs. Tracy's accusation! Vance turned his eyes on Miss Spear; but to his bewilderment her eloquence seemed to fail her. She met his glance, but only for a moment; then hers was averted. At last she said in a low voice: "I'm sure he'll tell you the books are at Mrs. Tracy's … that he took them away to finish reading something that interested him … without realising their value… ."

"I'm waiting to hear what he has to tell me," Mr. Lorburn rejoined. "But I must remind you, Halo, that, according to your own statement, Mrs. Tracy has looked everywhere for the books, and been forced to the conclusion—as you were—that when the young man disappeared from her house he took them with him. Perhaps he will now say if he has been obliging enough to bring them back."

Mr. Lorburn revolved his small head on his long thin neck and fixed his eyes on Vance.

Vance felt the muscles of his face contracting. His lips were so stiff that he could hardly move them. These people were suggesting that he had taken away books from the Willows—valuable books! This Mr. Lorburn, apparently, was almost accusing him of having stolen them! What else could he mean by the phrase "When he disappeared from Mrs. Tracy's he took them with him"? Vance felt as defenceless as a little boy against whom a schoolmate had trumped up a lying charge; in his first bewilderment he did not know what to say, or what tone to take. Then his anger rushed to his lips.

"What's this about taking books away and disappearing? I never disappeared. I went with Upton to a ball game." He felt himself redden at the memory. "I never took a single book away from here, not one."

Miss Spear interrupted eagerly: "I told you so, Cousin Tom … I was sure… ."

Mr. Lorburn leaned more heavily on his stick. "Where are they then?" Her head drooped, and she turned from him with an appealing gesture. "Vance?—"

"What books?" Vance asked again.

Mr. Lorburn drew himself to his feet and began to move across the room with shaking sideway steps, his stick pointed first at one shelf, then at another. As he did so he reeled off a succession of long titles, all too unfamiliar to Vance for his ear to hold them. He heard "rare Americana," and did not know if it were the name of a book or a reference to some literary category he had never met with. At last he said: "I never even heard of the names of any of those books. Why on earth should I have taken them?"