his
eyes at that moment and it is highly doubtful if he would have heard a
fife and drum corps in full blare enter the kitchen. He heard nothing
and saw nothing below that upward focal angle.

The man Phelan should have heard flashed the light in his cane only at
infrequent intervals. He did not aim its bright revealing beam into
the half open door of the adjoining laundry and he was as unconscious
of the proximity of Phelan as that unfrocked or de-uniformed officer
was of the invader. He returned to Miss Helen Burton in complete
ignorance of the fact that the lower regions of the dwelling were
otherwise than empty.

But the second he re-entered the room he saw the girl was strangely
agitated and that she feared to look at him. Laying down his cane he
crossed the room to her side and said in his softest tones:

"Well, you haven't got on very fast in your packing, have you, dear?"

Helen was leaning against the back of a chair, feeling she was surely
going to topple over in a swoon. Summoning all her reserve of nerve
power, she strove to reply naturally:

"No. I--I didn't quite understand how to pack."

He was at her side now and seized both her hands.

"Why, Helen, what's the matter? Your hands are cold as ice."

He spoke warmly and tenderly, while at the same time his eyes were
everywhere about the room and he was listening with the wary alertness
of a rodent.

There was more than a little of the rat in the soul inclosed in this
splendid envelope.

"It's nothing--only I'm faint," she said tremulously.

"That policeman has been talking to you--hasn't he?" he said quietly.

"Yes, he has," she blurted, with a catch in her throat.

"Did he tell you who he was?"

He measured out each word and conveyed the sense. "Did he tell you who
he pretended to be?"

"Yes," the girl responded, scarcely above a whisper.

He took her by the shoulders and turned her squarely toward him,
looking down into her face with frowning eyes.

"Now, Helen, I want you to tell me the truth--the truth, you
understand? I shall know it even if you don't. Who did he say he
was?"

A feeling of repugnance took possession of the girl and she shook
herself free and stood back. Her body had warmed into life again and
she looked steadily into his eyes as she answered:

"Travers Gladwin!"

He needed all his great bulk of flesh and steel-fibred nerve to fend
off this shock. Not the remotest fancy had crossed his mind that
Travers Gladwi