shortly, and went on
clearing the table.

"I wonder--do you remember about the village idiot and the horse? But
of course you do, Mrs. Pitman; you are a woman of imagination. Don't
you think you could be Alice Murray for a few moments? Now think--you
are a stenographer with theatrical ambitions: you meet an actor and
you fall in love with him, and he with you."

"That's hard to imagine, that last."

"Not so hard," he said gently. "Now the actor is going to put you on
the stage, perhaps in this new play, and some day he is going to marry
you."

"Is that what he promised the girl?"

"According to some letters her mother found, yes. The actor is
married, but he tells you he will divorce the wife; you are to wait
for him, and in the meantime he wants you near him; away from the
office, where other men are apt to come in with letters to be typed,
and to chaff you. You are a pretty girl."

"It isn't necessary to overwork my imagination," I said, with a little
bitterness. I had been a pretty girl, but work and worry--

"Now you are going to New York very soon, and in the meantime you have
cut yourself off from all your people. You have no one but this man.
What would you do? Where would you go?"

"How old was the girl?"

"Nineteen."

"I think," I said slowly, "that if I were nineteen, and in love with a
man, and hiding, I would hide as near him as possible. I'd be likely
to get a window that could see his going out and coming in, a place so
near that he could come often to see me."

"Bravo!" he exclaimed. "Of course, with your present wisdom and
experience, you would do nothing so foolish. But this girl was in her
teens; she was not very far away, for he probably saw her that Sunday
afternoon, when he was out for two hours. And as the going was slow
that day, and he had much to tell and explain, I figure she was not
far off. Probably in this very neighborhood."

During the remainder of that morning I saw Mr. Holcombe, at intervals,
going from house to house along Union Street, making short excursions
into side thoroughfares, coming back again and taking up his door-bell
ringing with unflagging energy. I watched him off and on for two
hours. At the end of that time he came back flushed and excited.

"I found the house," he said, wiping his glasses. "She was there, all
right, not so close as we had thought, but as close as she could get."

"And can you trace her?" I asked.

His face changed and saddened. "Po