ur own sake, go back to the club, and remain there until a
position is open to you which is to your liking. You are a young girl
in a strange country, as you say, and at least you know the club to be
a safe place for you. Do not trust this man Paddington, or anyone
else; it is not wise."

"I shall not listen to you!" she cried, her voice rising shrill and
high-pitched in her excitement. "You shall not say such things of
M'sieu Paddington! He is brave and good, while you--you are a spy, an
eavesdropper, a delver into the private affairs of others. I do not
know what this trouble may be, which Miss Lawton is in, and I am sorry
for her, that she should suffer, but I shall have nothing more to do
with the case, nor with you, m'sieu! _Au revoir!_"

"Whew!" breathed Blaine to himself, as the door closed after her with
a slam. "What a firebrand! She may not have actually betrayed us to
Paddington in so many words, but it isn't necessary to look far for
the one who warned him that he was being watched, and put him on his
guard, all unknowingly, that the whole scheme in which he is so deeply
involved, was in jeopardy. Oh, these women! Let them once lose their
heads over a man, and they upset all one's plans!"

Blaine arrived promptly within the hour at the house on Belleair
Avenue. Anita Lawton received him as before in the library. He
observed with deep concern that she was a mere shadow of her former
self. The slenderness which had been one of her girlish charms had
become almost emaciation; her eyes were glassily bright, and in the
waxen pallor of her cheeks a feverish red spot burned.

She smiled wanly as he pressed her hand, and her pale lips trembled,
but no words came.

"My poor child!" the great detective found himself saying from the
depths of his fatherly heart. "You are positively ill! This will never
do. You are not keeping your promise to me."

"I am trying hard to, Mr. Blaine." Anita motioned toward a chair and
sank into another with a little gasp of sheer exhaustion. "You have
never failed yet, and you have given me your word that you would bring
Ramon back to me. I try to have faith, but with every hour that
passes, hope dies within me, and I can feel that my strength, my will
to believe, is dying, too. I know that you must be doing your utmost,
exerting every effort, and yet I cannot resist the longing to urge you
on, to try to express to you the torture of uncertainty and dread
which consumes me unceasin