ntelligence blazed with understanding. His first
groping suspicions had been justified. There was romance in the wind.
Steering easily with one hand, Gaston deftly seized the bill and
caused it to vanish somewhere in his great fur coat.

Sadie Burton had been horror-stricken at this bold proffer of a bribe.
Likewise she was alarmed that Helen should put so much trust in
Gaston, who seemed to be in mortal terror of her aunt and to quake all
through his body when he listened to her commands.

As Helen sank back beside her, after letting fall the bribe, the
agitated Sadie whispered tremulously:

"Are you sure you can trust him, Helen? If he should tell Auntie El
she would surely make you a prisoner. You will never get a chance to
leave her side at the opera to-night."

"Gaston is a Frenchman, my dear," laughed Helen, confidently, "and
most Frenchmen--even chauffeurs, I am sure--would cut their hearts out
before they would oppose a barrier to the course of true love."

But Helen's gayety did not communicate itself to Sadie. That shy miss
trembled apprehensively as she sought to picture herself in Helen's
place--on the verge of an elopement. Not that such a prospect did not
have its alluring thrill even to such a shrinking maiden as the
violet-eyed Sadie, but her fear of her aunt seemed to crush and
obliterate these titillating sensations. As the car shot through
Seventy-second street and headed for the entrance to the West Drive of
Central Park, she ventured another word of caution.

"Wouldn't it be better to send a messenger to Mr. Gladwin's house,
Helen? Suppose we should run into somebody there who knew auntie?"

"You ridiculously little fraid-cat," Helen caught her up. "Of course
there'll be nobody there but Travers, or perhaps his man or some of
the other servants. He has good reason for keeping very quiet now and
sees absolutely nobody, not even--not even--not even his grandmother,
if he has one."

"And didn't he tell you whether or not he had a grandmother, Helen?"
gasped Sadie.

But Helen disdained to reply, her heart suddenly filling with rapture
at the prospect of an immediate meeting with her betrothed.

CHAPTER VIII.

TRAVERS GLADWIN GETS A THRILL.

A ring at the door bell should suggest to the ordinary mind that some
person or persons clamored for admission, but Whitney Barnes's
announcement seemed to have difficulty in hammering its way into
Travers Gladwin's gray matter and thence downw