important mission. You're
only a girl, but--you've been thrown into this tragic affair, and--you'll
be glad to help your lover, won't you?"

"Oh, yes," she answered eagerly.

"You may as well know that we are facing a situation not
altogether--er--encouraging. I believe M. Kittredge is innocent and I hope
to prove it, but others think differently and they have serious things
against him."

"What things?" she demanded, her cheeks paling.

"No matter now."

"There can be _nothing_ against him," declared the girl, "he is the soul of
honor."

"I hope so," answered the detective dryly, "but he is also in prison, and
unless we do something he is apt to stay there."

"What can we do?" murmured Alice, twining her fingers piteously.

"We must get at the truth, we must find this woman who came to see you. The
quickest way to do that is through Kittredge himself. He knows all about
her, if we can make him speak. So far he has refused to say a word, but
there is one person who ought to unseal his lips--that is the girl he
loves."

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Alice, her face lighting with new hope, "I think I
could, I am sure I could, only--will they let me see him?"

"That is the point. It is against the prison rule for a person _au secret_
to see anyone except his lawyer, but I know the director of the Sante and I
think----"

"You mean the director of the depot?"

"No, for M. Kittredge was transferred from the depot this morning. You know
the depot is only a temporary receiving station, but the Sante is one of
the regular French prisons. It's there they send men charged with murder."

Alice shivered at the word. "Yes," she murmured, "and--what were you
saying?"

"I say that I know the director of the Sante and I think, if I send you to
him with a strong note, he will make an exception--I think so."

"Splendid!" she cried joyfully. "And when shall I present the note?"

"To-day, at once; there isn't an hour to lose. I will write it now."

Coquenil sat down at his massive Louis XV table with its fine bronzes and
quickly addressed an urgent appeal to M. Dedet, director of the Sante,
asking him to grant the bearer a request that she would make in person, and
assuring him that, by so doing, he would confer upon Paul Coquenil a
deeply appreciated favor. Alice watched him with a sense of awe, and she
thought uneasily of her dream about the face in the angry sun and the land
of the black people.

"There," he said, handing