your sister-in-law, and your
wife informed me that you had an appointment this morning at this
office. I therefore came directly here with the girl, who, as you see,
is safe and sound, but with an additional interesting experience or
two to add to the large fund she already possessed." He looked down at
Carmen and smiled. "And now," he concluded, laughing, as he prepared
to depart, "I will not ask for a receipt for the child, as I see I
have several witnesses to the fact that I have delivered her to the
proper custodian." He bowed and went to the door.

"Wait!" cried Reed, seizing him by the hand. "We want to thank you! We
want to know you--"

"I will give you my card," replied the priest. "And I would be very
happy, indeed, if some time again I might be permitted to see and talk
with the little girl." He handed his card to Reed; then nodded and
smiled at Carmen and went out.

"By Jove!" sputtered Harris, pushing the girl aside and making after
him. But he was too late. The priest had already caught a descending
elevator, and disappeared. Harris returned to the bewildered group. "I
guess that knocks the Simiti Company sky-high," he exclaimed, "for
here is the sole owner of La Libertad!"

Ketchim collapsed into a chair, while Reed, saying that he would keep
his dinner engagement with Ketchim on the following day, picked up
Carmen's precious bundle and, taking her hand, left the room. "I am
going home," he called back to Harris; "and you be sure to come up to
the house to-night. We'll have to readjust our plans now."

CHAPTER 5

"Reed," said Harris the following day, as they sat in the dusty,
creaking car that was conveying them to their dinner appointment with
Ketchim, "who is this Ames that Ketchim referred to yesterday?"

The men were not alone, for Carmen accompanied them. Reed was
reluctantly bringing her at the urgent request received from Ketchim
over the telephone the previous evening. But the girl, subdued by the
rush of events since her precipitation into the seething American
world of materialism, sat apart from them, gazing with rapt attention
through the begrimed window at the flying scenery, and trying to
interpret it in the light of her own tenacious views of life and the
universe. If the marvels of this new world into which she had been
thrown had failed to realize her expectations--if she saw in them, and
in the sense of life which they express, something less real, less
substantial, than