or an eternity.

"Are you glad we're getting back?" he asked. Helene shook her head, then
she answered dreamily.

"Do you remember something from one of Browning's poems, that I do? It's
just silly for us, but I understand it better now."

Shirley surprised her by quoting it, as he looked ahead into the dark
street through which they swung, his unswerving hand steady on the
wheel:

"What if we still ride on, we two,
With life forever old yet new,
Changed not in kind, but in degree,
The instant made eternity,--
And heaven just prove that I and she
Ride, ride together, forever ride?"

A quick flush, not caused by the biting wind, suffused her cheek beneath
the remnants of the rouge. Then she laughed up at him appreciatively.

"Curious how our minds ran that way, and hit the very same poem, wasn't
it?"

Shirley smiled back, as he swung down Fifth Avenue.

"Not so curious after all!"

Soon they drew up before the ornate portal of the California Hotel,
where late arrivals were so customary as to cause no comment. He bade
her good-night, words seeming futile after their long hours together.
The drive in the car to the club was short. Paddy the door man was
instructed to send down to Shirley's own garage for a mechanic to store
the car until further orders. The criminologist had ere this rubbed off
his grease paint, so that his appearance was not unusual. Once in his
rooms he treated himself to a piping hot shower, cleaned off the powder
from his dark locks, and as he smoked a soothing cigarette, in his
bathrobe, studied the mechanism of the gas generator for a few moments.

"That was made by an expert who understands infernal machines with a
malevolent genius. I must look out for him," he mused. "Well, I promised
Professor MacDonald that I would not sleep until I had come face to face
with the voice. I have fulfilled the vow: now for forgetfulness."

He tumbled into bed, but not to oblivion. For his dreams were disturbed
by tantalizing visions of certain sun-gold locks and blue eyes not at
all in their simple connection with the business end of the Van Cleft
mystery.

CHAPTER XII. THE HAND OF THE VOICE

It took stoicism to the Nth degree for Shirley to respond to the early
telephone call next morning, from the clerk of the club. A few minutes
of violent exercise, in the hand ball court, the plunge, a short swim in
the natatorium and a rub down from the Swedish masseur, ho