ot to see her but to
pick up the loose intangible thread which I am sure is floating around
in it somewhere--wouldn't you go?"

Violet slowly rose--a movement which he followed to the letter.

"Must I express in words the limit I have set for myself in our affair?"
she asked. "When, for reasons I have never thought myself called upon to
explain, I consented to help you a little now and then with some matter
where a woman's tact and knowledge of the social world might tell
without offence to herself or others, I never thought it would be
necessary for me to state that temptation must stop with such cases,
or that I should not be asked to touch the sordid or the bloody. But it
seems I was mistaken, and that I must stoop to be explicit. The woman
who was killed on Tuesday might have interested me greatly as an
embroiderer, but as a victim, not at all. What do you see in me, or miss
in me, that you should drag me into an atmosphere of low-down crime?"

"Nothing, Miss Strange. You are by nature, as well as by breeding,
very far removed from everything of the kind. But you will allow me to
suggest that no crime is low-down which makes imperative demand upon
the intellect and intuitive sense of its investigator. Only the most
delicate touch can feel and hold the thread I've just spoken of, and you
have the most delicate touch I know."

"Do not attempt to flatter me. I have no fancy for handling befouled
spider webs. Besides, if I had--if such elusive filaments fascinated
me--how could I, well-known in person and name, enter upon such a scene
without prejudice to our mutual compact?"

"Miss Strange"--she had reseated herself, but so far he had failed to
follow her example (an ignoring of the subtle hint that her interest
might yet be caught, which seemed to annoy her a trifle), "I should
not even have suggested such a possibility had I not seen a way of
introducing you there without risk to your position or mine. Among the
boxes piled upon Mrs. Doolittle's table--boxes of finished work, most
of them addressed and ready for delivery--was one on which could be seen
the name of--shall I mention it?"

"Not mine? You don't mean mine? That would be too odd--too ridiculously
odd. I should not understand a coincidence of that kind; no, I should
not, notwithstanding the fact that I have lately sent out such work to
be done."

"Yet it was your name, very clearly and precisely written--your whole
name, Miss Strange. I saw and read