ble increase of salary, and new duties which will take
you into the open air. . . . You ride?"

"I--I used to before----"

"_Ex_actly; before you were obliged to earn your living. Please have
yourself measured for habit and boots this afternoon. I shall arrange
for horse, saddle, and groom. You will spend most of your time riding
in the Park--for the present."

"But--Mr. Keen--am I to be one of your agents--a sort of detective?"

Keen regarded her absently, then crossed one leg over the other.

"Read me your notes," he said with a smile.

She read them, folded them, and he took them from her, thoughtfully
regarding her.

"Did you know that your mother and I were children together?" he asked.

"No!" She stared. "Is _that_ why you sent for me that day at the school
of stenography?"

"That is why . . . When I learned that my playmate--your mother--was
dead, is it not reasonable to suppose that I should wish her daughter to
have a chance?"

Miss Southerland looked at him steadily.

"She was like you--when she married . . . I never married . . . Do you
wonder that I sent for you, child?"

Nothing but the clock ticking there in the sunny room, and an old man
staring into two dimmed brown eyes, and the little breezes at the open
window whispering of summers past.

"This young man, Gatewood," said the Tracer, clearing his voice of its
hoarseness--"this young man ought to be all right, if I did not
misjudge his father--years ago, child, years ago. And he _is_ all
right--" He half turned toward a big letter-file; "his record is clean,
so far. The trouble with him is idleness. He ought to marry."

"Isn't he trying to?" she asked.

"It looks like it. Miss Southerland, we _must_ find this woman!"

"Yes, but I don't see how you are going to--on such slight
information--"

"Information! Child, I have all I want--all I could desire." He laughed,
passing his hands over his gray hair. "We are going to find the girl he
is in love with before the week ends!"

"Do you really think so?" she exclaimed.

"Yes. But you must do a great deal in this case."

"I?"

"_Ex_actly."

"And--and what am I to do?"

"Ride in the Park, child! And if you see Mr. Gatewood, don't you dare
take your eyes off him for one moment. Watch him; observe everything he
does. If he should recognize you and speak to you, be as amiable to him
as though it were not by my orders."

"Then--then I _am_ to be a detective!" she faltered.

The Tra