nceal me somewhere and give me time to set the
proper machinery in motion to find these boys. There is no other way.
Your father has some reason for keeping their whereabouts concealed. I
may know the purpose and I may not. The boys may have been killed in the
volley that struck me. It will require a mere telegram to find out. I
know whom to address, but I must be where I can use trusted agents. I
have no money. You can, I hope, provide me with that, or the Spragues if
you can't."

He spoke with a flush deepening on his face, and arose with something
like vigor.

"Ample means--you shall have any sum you need," Kate said, handing him a
well-filled purse.

"Good--I have one or two articles in my room. I will fetch them and
follow you to the carriage."

Ten minutes later the carriage was whirling over the broad road to
Warchester. By Jones's advice it was stopped at the hospital. Here he
proposed remaining for the night, to mislead suspicion if any one had
taken the precaution to follow.

"I will remain with our friend Elkins to-night, as you suggest," Jones
said; "to-morrow I will send you word of my whereabouts, and you may
expect to have news of the boys within the week."

"My address will be in Washington," Kate said. "I shall go at once to
the Spragues. They have been there, as I told you, to seek every
possible source of information. I left them to follow you, hoping that
through you I should find the missing."

"You made no mistake. I shall find them. You can tell your friends
that," and he added, with a gleam of savage malice, "God help the man
that has raised the weight of a feather against them, for he has put a
heavy hurt on me if he has harmed them!"

Kate shuddered. Was she never to emerge from this hideous circle of
vengeful hatred--this condition of passionate vendetta--where men were
seeking each other's harm? On reaching home she addressed a note to her
father explaining frankly that she had entered into communication with
Jones; that who had been pained by all that she had heard; that the
inquiry had now passed out of her hands and was in that of the
authorities, and begging him to drop any participation he might have
meditated In a late letter Olympia had given good news of her mother,
saying that Kate could return with safety, and, informing her father of
this, Kate bade him good-by for a time.

When Kate reached Washington she found Mrs. Sprague convalescent, but
painfully feeble. The poor