ou
know what. One could laugh if it were not so pathetic."

"Little fool!" Stella said, half contemptuously, and yet with a note of
regret in her tone.

"I thought, perhaps," Vine said, "you might find out where she is and go
and talk common sense to her. If there is anything else we can do, I'd
like to, only I hate the thought of a pretty child like that wandering
about London on such an absurd quest."

"Do you know where she is to be found?" Stella asked quietly.

"I have no idea," Vine answered. "The last time I saw her was in my own
rooms. I am only sorry that I let her go."

Stella looked up at him quickly.

"Your own rooms!" she repeated. "What do you mean?"

"Well," he answered, "with the extraordinary luck which comes sometimes
to babies, she overheard two men talking about me and arranging to meet
at a certain hour at my flat. She actually had the nerve to be there
herself at the same time. While she sat in my sitting-room, they waited
in the bedroom. Mind, a great part of this may be her invention. I have
only her word for it, but she certainly seemed as though she were
telling the truth. I rang up for some one to bring me a change of
clothes, and she answered the telephone. What she said to me sounded
such rank nonsense that I jumped in a hansom and went straight back to
my rooms. However, the men who were listening gathered from what she
said that I was not coming back, and they gave it up and stole out. When
I returned I found her waiting there, and she demanded that I should
give her up the paper she wanted as a matter of gratitude."

"Do you believe her story?" Stella asked.

"I don't know," he answered. "I know that I am being followed about, and
if she could get into my rooms, it is quite as easy for them to do so.
They may have been there, and I dare say that if I had entered
unsuspectingly, and Dan Prince had anything to do with it, I shouldn't
have had much chance. It amused me to see all my drawers turned out and
my papers disturbed."

"Little idiot!" Stella said impatiently. "She ought to be at home,
feeding her father's chickens. She is hopelessly out of place here, just
as she was in New York,"

"I wish we could send her back there," Vine declared.

Stella looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"My dear Norris," she said, "isn't this rather a new departure for you?
I don't seem to recognize you in this frame of mind."

He sipped his wine thoughtfully for a minute or two, and helped