cended the broad steps holding herself stiffly erect, head
uptilted--a striking figure, graceful, supple, almost commanding. In
fact, so attractive was the picture she made as she stood a moment on
the sidewalk, that a passing policeman, seized by a gallant impulse,
opened the door of the waiting taxicab and held it ajar while she
entered.

Balancing himself on the edge of the curb, the bluecoat stared after her
in undisguised admiration until the cab swung around the corner; then he
bestowed a curious glance on the house whence she had come. He saw that
the door was half open and that a man's figure stood revealed in the
soft light of the hallway. One hand was on the door knob, one foot was
thrust forward as if the man were uncertain whether to plunge after her.
Evidently he decided against venturing out, for he stepped back into the
vestibule and shut the door.

"Even these people have their little scraps," the bluecoat murmured
sagely, and passed on.

Herbert Whitmore did not return to the room in which he had received the
visitor. Instead, he ascended the stairs to the library, and threw
himself into the soft embrace of a wide leather chair.

The turmoil of his brain gave him an uncomfortable feeling of
excitement, as if he were participating in something active and swift,
which he but partly understood. He was incapable of connected
thought--everything was vague and shadowy before him. In a dim way he
recognized that he was standing in the way of an approaching avalanche,
and gradually he began to discern the nature of the impending
catastrophe. Presently the vague uncertainty that hovered before his
mind resolved itself into action, and his groping forefinger pressed a
button hidden beneath the carved edge of the library table. In response
to the pressure, a liveried butler entered the room.

"Did you mail the letter I gave you?" inquired Whitmore.

"Yes, sir."

"When?"

"Immediately you gave it to me."

"That was about four hours ago?"

"Yes, sir."

"That is all."

The butler effaced himself from the room as noiselessly as he had
entered, and again Whitmore gave himself up to the alarming predicament
in which he found himself.

His reflections centered about the letter which the butler had mailed.
It was not sent in a moment of impulsiveness. The information which it
conveyed was not offered in spite, or in anger, or in envy. It was the
deliberate act of a man habituated to clear thinking and co