d then waited
for the effect of this limited information.

The woman started. It was a startled start. The challenge of her
countenance wavered; the precision of her manner became an attitude of
caution.

"Not--not Pierce Langford of--of--?" she began.

The man smiled on one side of his mouth.

"The very one, none other," he answered cunningly. "Not to be in the
least obscure, I am from the pretty, quiet and somewhat sequestered city
of Fairberry. You know the place, I believe."

"I've never been there and hope I shall never have occasion to go to
your diminutive metropolis," she returned rather savagely.

"No?" the visitor commented with a rising inflection for rhetorical
effect. "By the way, may I come in?"

"Certainly," Mrs. Graham answered recovering quickly from a partial
lapse of mindfulness of the situation.

The woman turned and led the way into the house and the visitor
followed. Mrs. Graham directed the lawyer to a reed rockingchair and
herself sat down on another reed-rest of the armchair variety. The woman
by this time had recovered something of her former challenging attitude
and inquired:

"Well, Mr. Langford, what is the meaning of this visit?"

"Very much meaning, Mrs. Graham," was the reply; "and of very much
significance to you, I suspect. I come here well primed with information
which I am sure will cause you to welcome me as you perhaps would
welcome nobody else in the world."

Mrs. Graham leaned forward eagerly, expectantly, apprehensively.

"You come as a friend, I assume," she said.

"Have you any reason to doubt it?" the man inquired. "If it were
otherwise, I must necessarily come as a traitor. I hope you will not
entertain any such opinion of me as that. As long as you treat me
fairly, you'll find me absolutely on the square for you and your
interests."

"I hope so," returned the woman in a tone of voice that could hardly be
said to convey any significance other than the dictionary meaning of the
words. "But let's get down to business. What is this information that
you come here primed with? Has it to do with the old subject?"

"Certainly, very intimately, and with nothing else."

"In what way?" Mrs. Graham asked with more eagerness than she intended
to disclose.

"Well, there are some spies in this neck of the woods."

"Spies!" the woman exclaimed, betraying still more of the eagerness she
was still struggling against.

"Yes spies. That's exactly what they call themselv