hough you do not know it,
because some one else is watching. It was not one of his friends who
told your husband--"

Mrs. Caswell had paled. "Is--is there a--detective?" she faltered.

Constance nodded.

Mildred had collapsed completely. She was sobbing in a chair, her head
bowed in her hands, her little lace handkerchief soaked. "What shall I
do? What shall I do?"

There was a sudden tap at the door.

"Quick--in there," whispered Constance, shoving her through the
portieres into the drawing room.

It was Forest Caswell.

For a moment Constance stood irresolute, wondering just how to meet
him, then she said, "Good evening, Mr. Caswell. I hope you will pardon
me for asking you to call on me, but, as you know, I've come to know
your wife--perhaps better than you do."

"Not better," he corrected, seeming to see that it was directness that
she was aiming at. "It is bad enough to get mixed up badly in Wall
Street, but what would you yourself say--you are a business woman--what
would you say about getting into the clutches of a--a dream doctor--and
worse?"

He had put Constance on the defensive in a sentence.

"Don't you ever dream?" she asked quietly.

He looked at her a moment as if doubting even her mentality.

"Lord," he exclaimed in disgust, "you, too, defend it?"

"But, don't you dream?" she persisted.

"Why, of course I dream," he answered somewhat petulantly. "What of it?
I don't guide my actions by it."

"Do you ever dream of Mildred?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he admitted reluctantly.

"Ever of other--er--people?" she pursued.

"Yes," he replied, "sometimes of other people. But what has that to do
with it? I cannot help my dreams. My conduct I can help and I do help."

Constance had not expected him to be frank to the extent of taking her
into his confidence. Still, she felt that he had told her just enough.
She discerned a vague sense of jealousy in his tone which told her more
than words that whatever he might have said or done to Mildred he
resented, unconsciously, the manner in which she had striven to gain
sympathy outside.

"Fortunately he knows nothing of the new theories," she said to herself.

"Mrs. Dunlap," he resumed, "since you have been frank with me, I must
be equally frank with you. I think you are far too sensible a woman not
to understand in just what a peculiar position my wife has placed me."

He had taken out of his pocket a few sheets of closely typewritten
tissue pap