he beau-monde--of the
bonanza and railroad set--and making eyes at all the pretty wives and
daughters they met, cogitated fresh devices for making money. As they
sauntered across Pacific Avenue, in the direction of Californian
Street, Kelson suddenly gave vent to a whistle.

"What the deuce is wrong with you?" Hamar exclaimed. "Seen your
grandmother's ghost?"

"No! but I've seen the inner readings of that lady yonder," Kelson
replied, indicating with a jerk of his finger a fashionably dressed
woman walking towards them on the other side of the road. "The deuce
knows how it all comes to me, but I know everything about her, just
the same as I did with the girl in the dive--though I've never seen
her before. She is the wife of D.D. Belton, the cotton magnate, who
lives in a big, white house at the corner of Powell Street--and a
beauty, I can assure you. Supposed to be most devoted to her husband,
she is now on her way to keep an appointment with the Rev. J.T.
Calthorpe of Sancta Maria's Church in Appleyard Street, with whom she
has been holding clandestine meetings for the past six months."

"Whew!" Hamar ejaculated. "You speak as if it was all being pumped
into you by some external agency--automatically."

"That's just about what I feel!" Kelson said, "I feel as if it were
some one else saying all this--some one else speaking through me. Yet
I know all about that woman, just as much as if I had been acquainted
with her all my life!"

"It's the first power," Hamar said excitedly, "the power of
divination. It takes that form with you, and the form of card tricks
with Ed--with me nothing so far."

"But what shall I do?" Kelson cried. "How can I benefit by it?"

"How can't you?" Curtis growled. "Why, blackmail her! If it is true,
she will pay you anything to keep your mouth shut. If once you can
tell a woman's secret, your future's made. All San Francisco will be
at your mercy--God knows who'll escape! After her at once, you idiot!"

"Now?" Kelson gasped.

"Yes! Now! Follow her to Calthorpe's and waylay her as she comes out.
You can refer to us as witnesses."

"I feel a bit of a blackguard," Kelson pleaded.

"You look it, anyway," Curtis grinned. "But cheer up--it's the
clothes. Clothes are responsible for everything!"

After a little persuasion Kelson gave in, but he had to make haste as
the lady was nearly out of sight. She took a taxi from the stand
opposite Kitson's hotel, and Kelson took one, too. Two hour