that he was about to start something. There wasn't any stop in
the vocabulary of his thoughts at that minute.

"Why, the elopement!" ejaculated Sadie, exploding a little bomb that
brought Whitney Barnes down out of the clouds.

"Yes, of course--to be sure--the elopement--I'd forgotten," he raced
on. "Let me look at you. No, you must not turn away. I must look at
you--that's the only way I can help you."

If he had to take a hand in the business of preventing an elopement he
was going to combine that business with pleasure.

"You are sure you want me to help you?" he asked.

"Yes, so awfully much!" she cried.

"Then I must look at you--look at you very closely," he said, with the
utmost seriousness.

"I don't understand," murmured Sadie, both pleased and frightened by
his intense scrutiny.

"I'll show you," said Barnes. "Stand very still, with your arms at
your side--there! (my, but she's a picture!) I've found out the first
thing--I read it in your eyes."

"What!" in a stifled whisper.

"You don't approve of this elopement."

"Oh, no!" Sadie had yielded her eyes as if hypnotized.

"There, I told you so!" exulted Barnes. "You want to stop the
elopement, but you don't know how to do it."

"Yes, that's perfectly true," confessed the spellbound Sadie.

"Shall I tell you how to stop it?"

"Yes, please do."

"Then sit down."

He motioned to a chair three feet from where he stood. The victim of
this, his first excursion into the fields of mesmerism, tripped with
bird-like steps to the chair and sat down. Barnes went easily toward
her and sat down on the arm. He was as solemn about it as if his every
move were part of a ritual.

"Now, please take off your glove--the left one," he commanded softly.
Sadie obeyed mechanically. Barnes went on:

"Before deciding upon what you should do, I'd like to know definitely
about you--if you don't mind."

"What do you want me to tell you?" asked Sadie, with a brave effort to
keep her voice from running off into little tremors.

"Nothing!" replied the seer-faced Barnes. "What I want to discover you
may not even know yourself. Allow me to look at your hand, please."

Sadie yielded her hand with shy reluctance, allowing the young man to
hold only the tips of her fingers. Whitney Barnes bent his frowning
eyes over the fluttering little hand, studied the palm for a long
second, then exclaimed suddenly:

"By Jove! This is extraordinary!"

Sadie started, but her curi