ling or I doubted her financial position."

"I should never have thought you so credulous a person," remarked
Beatrice, with a smile.

Tavernake was genuinely disturbed. His business instincts were aroused.

"Do you really mean that this Mrs. Wenham Gardner is not a person of
substance?" he inquired.

Beatrice shrugged her shoulders.

"She is the wife of a man who had the reputation of being very wealthy,"
she replied. "She has no money of her own, I am sure."

"She still lives with her husband, I suppose?" Tavernake asked.

Beatrice closed her eyes.

"I know very little about her," she declared. "Last time I heard, he had
disappeared, gone away, or something of the sort."

"And she has no money," Tavernake persisted, "except what she gets from
him? No settlement, even, or anything of that sort?"

"Nothing at all," Beatrice answered.

"This is very bad news," Tavernake remarked, thinking gloomily of his
wasted day. "It will be a great disappointment to Mr. Dowling. Why, her
motor-car was magnificent, and she talked as though money were no object
at all. I suppose you are quite sure of what you are saying?"

Beatrice shrugged her shoulders.

"I ought to know," she answered, grimly, "for she is my sister."

Tavernake remained quite motionless for a minute, without speech; it was
his way of showing surprise. When he was sure that he had grasped the
import of her words, he spoke again.

"Your sister!" he repeated. "There is a likeness, of course. You are
dark and she is fair, but there is a likeness. That would account," he
continued, "for her anxiety to find you."

"It also accounts," Beatrice replied, with a little break of the lips,
"for my anxiety that she should not find me. Leonard," she added,
touching his hand for a moment with hers, "I wish that I could tell you
everything, but there are things behind, things so terrible, that even
to you, my dear brother, I could not speak of them."

Tavernake rose to his feet and lit a cigarette--a new habit with him,
while Beatrice busied herself with a small coffee-making machine. He sat
in an easy-chair and smoked slowly. He was still wearing his ready-made
clothes, but his collar was of the fashionable shape, his tie well
chosen and neatly adjusted. He seemed somehow to have developed.

"Beatrice," he asked, "what am I to tell your sister to-morrow?"

She shivered as she set his coffee-cup down by his side.

"Tell her, if you will, that I am well and no