ng to the maid.

"No, you're going to stay here," commanded Harry, seizing her hands.
"You've got to do something with Pauline. You're the only one who
can. She wants a new adventure every day, and a more dangerous one
every time. Talk to her, won't you? Tell her it isn't right for her
to risk her life when her life is so precious to so many people. No,
wait a minute; sit down here. I'm not half through yet."

He drew her, under laughing protest, to a seat beside him on the
stairs. She realized suddenly how serious he was. She let her hand
rest comradely in his pleading grasp.

"Why, Harry, yes, if it is really dangerous, you know, I'll do anything
I can," she said gravely.

They did not see the cold gray face of Raymond Owen appear at the top
of the stairs. The face vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

In her boudoir Polly was laying out her finery of the evening. There
came a soft rap at the door.

"Come in," she called, and looked up brightly in Owen's furtive eyes as
he opened the door and motioned to her.

"Don't say anything, please, Miss Marvin," he whispered, "just come
with me for a moment."

Bewildered by his manner, she followed to the top of the stairs. He
directed her gaze to the two young people in earnest conversation
below.

It was a picture that might well have startled a less impetuous heart
than Pauline's. Harry's hand still clasped Lucille's, and he was
leaning toward her in the eagerness of his appeal.

"You, will? You promise? Lucille, you've made me happy," Pauline
heard him say.

Through mist-dimmed eyes, dizzily, she saw the two arise. She saw the
man she loved clasp Lucille's other hand. She saw the girl who had
been her friend and confidante since childhood draw herself away from
him with a lingering withdrawal that could mean--ah, what could it
not mean? Polly fled to her room.

In Owen's subtle secret battle to retain control of the Marvin millions
fate had never so befriended him. None of all the weapons or ruses
that he had used to prevent the faithful attachment of Harry and
Pauline was as potent as this little seed of jealousy.

Pauline rang for her maid.

"Tell Miss Hamlin that I am not at home," she said in a voice that
started haughtily but ended in a sob.

"But, Miss Marvin--" Margaret tried to demur.

"Tell Miss Hamlin that I am not at home," repeated Pauline.

Lucille had just started up the stairs, leaving Harry with a
sympathetic pat o