"I don't believe it!" she gasped. "You know who to find! You're just
getting up this story to be noticed. You're always doing things to
attract attention to yourself. You want to go riding around in an
automobile and--and--Mr. Stoddard has probably gone in to Watauga and
taken the midnight train for Boston. This looking around in the
mountains is folly. Who would want to harm him in the mountains?"
For a moment Johnnie stood, thwarted and non-plussed. The insults
directed toward herself made almost no impression on her, strangely as
they came from Lydia Sessions's lips. She was too intent on her own
purpose to care greatly.
"Shade Buckheath--" she began cautiously, intending only to state that
Shade had taken Stoddard's car; but Lydia Sessions drew back with
a scream.
"It's a lie!" she cried. "There isn't a word of truth in what you say,
John Consadine. Oh, you're the plague of my life--you have been from the
first! You follow me about and torment me. Shade Buckheath had nothing
to do with Gray Stoddard's disappearance, I tell you. Nothing--nothing
--nothing!"
She thrust forward her face and sent forth the words with incredible
vehemence. But her tirade kindled in Johnnie no heat of personal anger.
She stood looking intently at the frantic woman before her. Slowly a
light of comprehension dawned in her eyes.
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