ldn't marry you now, if we could live in the finest asylum
in the land!"

Shrugging his shoulders with mirthful appreciation Stanton proceeded
then and there to re-pack his treasures and end the interview.

Just at the edge of the threshold Cornelia's voice called him back.

"Carl," she protested, "you are looking rather sick. I hope you are
going straight home."

"No, I'm not going straight home," said Stanton bluntly. "But here's
hoping that the 'longest way round' will prove even yet the very
shortest possible route to the particular home that, as yet, doesn't
even exist. I'm going hunting, Cornelia, hunting for Molly
Make-Believe; and what's more, I'm going to find her if it takes me
all the rest of my natural life!"

XI

Driving downtown again with every thought in his head, every plan,
every purpose, hurtling around and around in absolute chaos, his
roving eyes lit casually upon the huge sign of a detective bureau that
loomed across the street. White as a sheet with the sudden new
determination that came to him, and trembling miserably with the very
strength of the determination warring against the weakness and fatigue
of his body, he dismissed his cab and went climbing up the first
narrow, dingy stairway that seemed most liable to connect with the
brain behind the sign-board.

It was almost bed-time before he came down the stairs again, yet, "I
think her name is Meredith, and I think she's gone to Vermont, and
she has the most wonderful head of mahogany-colored hair that I ever
saw in my life," were the only definite clues that he had been able to
contribute to the cause.

In the slow, lagging week that followed, Stanton did not find himself
at all pleased with the particular steps which he had apparently been
obliged to take in order to ferret out Molly's real name and her real
city address, but the actual audacity of the situation did not
actually reach its climax until the gentle little quarry had been
literally tracked to Vermont with detectives fairly baying on her
trail like the melodramatic bloodhounds that pursue "Eliza" across the
ice.

"Red-headed party found at Woodstock," the valiant sleuth had wired
with unusual delicacy and caution.

"Denies acquaintance, Boston, everything, positively refuses
interview, temper very bad, sure it's the party," the second message
had come.

The very next northward-bound train found Stanton fretting the
interminable hours away between Boston and