days. She sailed for Europe the next day."

That closed the incident, and, so far as the mystery was concerned, only
added perplexity to it.

Dunham purposely remained down-town, merely having a clerk telephone home
for him that he had gone out of the city and would not be home until late,
so they need not wait up. He did this because he did not wish to have his
mother or his sister ask him any more questions about the missing hat and
coat. Then he took a twenty-mile trolley ride into the suburbs and back,
to make good his word that he had gone out of town; and all the way he
kept turning over and over the mystery of the beautiful young woman, until
it began to seem to him that he had been crazy to let her drift out into
the world alone and practically penniless. The dress had told its tale. He
saw, of course, that if she were afraid of detection, she must have found
it necessary to buy other clothing, and how could she have bought it with
only nine dollars and seventy-five cents? He now felt convinced that he
should have found some way to cash a check and thus supply her with what
she needed. It was terrible. True, she had those other beautiful rings,
which were probably valuable, but would she dare to sell them? Perhaps,
though, she had found some one else as ready as he had been to help her.
But, to his surprise, that thought was distasteful to him. During his
long, cold ride in solitude he discovered that the thing he wanted most in
life was to find that girl again and take care of her.

Of course he reasoned with himself most earnestly from one end of the
trolley line to the other, and called himself all kinds of a fool, but it
did not the slightest particle of good. Underneath all the reasoning, he
knew he was glad that he had found her once, and he determined to find her
again, and to unravel the mystery. Then he sat looking long and earnestly
into the depths of the beautiful white stone she had given to him, as if
he might there read the way to find her.

A little after midnight he arrived at the club-house, secured his
suit-case and the hat-box, and took a cab to his home. He left the vehicle
at the corner, lest the sound of it waken his mother or sister.

He let himself silently into the house with his latch-key, and tiptoed up
to his room. The light was burning low. He put the hat-box in the farthest
corner of his closet, then he took out the rain-coat, and, slipping off
his shoes, went softly down to the