his was taken about a year ago?" inquired Ford. "Must have been," he
answered himself; "they haven't raced at the Bay since then. This was
taken in front of the club stand--probably for the _Telegraph?_" He
lifted his eyes inquiringly.

Rising on her elbow the young wife bent forward toward the photograph.
"Does it say that there," she asked doubtfully. "How did you guess
that?"

In his role as chorus the ship's doctor exclaimed with enthusiasm:
"Didn't I tell you? He's wonderful."

Ford cut him off impatiently. "You never saw a rail as high as that
except around a race-track," he muttered. "And the badge in his
buttonhole and the angle of the stand all show--"

He interrupted himself to address the widow. "This is an owner's badge.
What was the name of his stable?"

"I don't know," she answered. She regarded the young man with sudden
uneasiness. "They only owned one horse, but I believe that gave them the
privilege of--"

"I see," exclaimed Ford. "Your husband is a bookmaker. But in London he
is a promoter of companies."

"So my friend tells me," said Mrs. Ashton. "She's just got back from
London. Her husband told her that Harry, my husband, was always at the
American bar in the Cecil or at the Salisbury or the Savoy." The girl
shook her head. "But a woman can't go looking for a man there," she
protested. "That's, why I thought you--"

"That'll be all right," Ford assured her hurriedly. "It's a coincidence,
but it happens that my own work takes me to these hotels, and if your
husband is there I will find him." He returned the photographs.

"Hadn't you better keep one?" she asked.

"I won't forget him," said the reporter. "Besides"--he turned his eyes
toward the doctor and, as though thinking aloud, said--"he may have
grown a beard."

There was a pause.

The eyes of the woman grew troubled. Her lips pressed together as though
in a sudden access of pain.

"And he may," Ford continued, "have changed his name."

As though fearful, if she spoke, the tears would fall, the girl nodded
her head stiffly.

Having learned what he wanted to know Ford applied to the wound a
soothing ointment of promises and encouragement.

"He's as good as found," he protested. "You will see him in a day, two
days after you land."

The girl's eyes opened happily. She clasped her hands together and
raised them.

"You will try?" she begged. "You will find him for me"--she corrected
herself eagerly--"for me and the baby?"

T