or your personal benefit, while examining those crescents
yesterday, I put a private mark on the back of the settings with a
steel-pointed instrument; it was like this"--making a cipher on a card
and passing it to him. "If you should ever be fortunate enough to come
across them again, you could identify them by it."

"Thank you," Mr. Cutler returned, as he put it carefully away.

Then he wished the gentleman a polite good-day, and went out of the
store, a wiser, but a somewhat poorer, man than he had been the previous
day.

He was almost crushed by the wrong which had been perpetrated against
him. He had been thoroughly and artfully deceived. Mrs. Bently--if indeed
that was her real name, which he doubted--had seemed such a modest and
unassuming woman, so frank, and sweet, and ingenuous, that he would have
indignantly resented it had any one hinted to him that she was not all
that she appeared to be.

He had never met any woman who possessed such power to charm him, and yet
she had never seemed to seek his notice--had never appeared to thrust
herself upon him in any way. He had instead sought _her_ and been
especially attracted to her by the very simplicity and naturalness of her
deportment; and this rude awakening to the fact of her duplicity was
therefore far more bitter than the loss of his money, although that was
considerable.

He was greatly depressed, but, on leaving Mr. Arnold's store, he
proceeded directly to the street and number which she had given as her
future place of residence. It proved to be an empty house with the sign
"To Rent" staring at him from several windows.

He next sought for the lawyer who, Mrs. Bently had told him, had
conducted her business affairs. There was no such person to be found.

Then, his indignation getting the better of his grief and disappointment,
he sought a detective, told his story, and gave the case into his hands.

"Keep the matter quiet, Rider," he said, "but spare no expense to find
the woman. If she is a professional thief, she will try the same trick on
some one else; and though we may not be able to bring her to justice in
this case, since I so rashly tied my hands by giving her that writing,
yet I should like to give my evidence against her for the benefit of some
other unfortunate victim."

Thus the matter rested for the time, and Justin Cutler once more threw
himself heart and soul into business, vowing that he would never trust a
woman again.

"But I'l