re all alike--duchess or scullery-maid. Their fluttering hearts are
all the world to them, and everything else chaos. If that woman only
chose--"

"Mr. Brett!" came a clear voice along the corridor.

It was Margaret. She came to him hastily

"Why do you suspect me?" she exclaimed brokenly. "I am the most miserable
woman on earth. Suffering and death environ me, and overwhelm those
nearest and dearest. Yet what have I done that you should think me capable
of concealing from you material facts which would be of use to you?"

The barrister was tempted to retort that what she believed to be
"material" might indeed be of very slight service to him, but the contrary
proposition held good, too.

Then he saw the anguish in her face, and it moved him to say gently:

"Go back to your friends, Mrs. Capella. I am not the keeper of your
conscience. I am almost sure you are worrying yourself about trifles.
Whatever they may be, you are not responsible. Rest assured of this, in a
few days much that is now dim and troublous will be cleared up. I ask you
nothing further. I would prefer not to hear anything you wish to say to
me. It might fetter my hands Good-bye!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE MEETING

"There!" he said to himself, as he passed downstairs, "I am just as big a
fool as she is. She followed me to make a clean breast of everything, and
I send her back with a request to keep her lips sealed. Yet I am angry
with her for the risk she is taking!"

He reached the hall and was about to cross the foyer when he caught the
words, "Gentleman thrown out of a cab," uttered by a handsome girl,
cheaply but gaudily attired, who was making some inquiry at the bureau.

He stopped and searched for a match. Then he became interested in the
latest news, pinned in strips on the baize-covered board of a "ticker."

The girl explained to an official that she had witnessed an accident that
evening. She was told that a gentleman who lived in the hotel was hurt.
Was he seriously injured?

The hotel man, from long practice, was enabled to sum up such inquirers
rapidly.

"Do you know the gentleman?" he inquired.

"No--that is, slightly."

"Well, madam, if you give me your card I will send it to his friends. They
will give you all necessary information."

She became confused. She was not accustomed to the quiet elegance of a
great hotel. The men in evening dress, the gorgeously attired ladies
passing to elevator or drawing-room, seemed