ered. I imagine that if my
client had stopped to think twice, which of course is a preposterous
condition, he would have confided his discovery only to Farrar and
to me. It was now out of the question to keep it from the rest of the
party, and Mr. Trevor got the headlines over my shoulder. I handed him
the sheet.

"Read it, Mr. Trevor," said Mrs. Cooke.

Mr. Trevor, in a somewhat unsteady voice, read the headlines and
began the column, and they followed breathless with astonishment and
agitation. Once or twice the senator paused to frown upon the Celebrity
with a terrible sternness, thus directing all other eyes to him. His
demeanor was a study in itself. It may be surmised, from what I have
said of him, that there was a strain of the actor in his composition;
and I am prepared to make an affidavit that, secure in the knowledge
that he had witnesses present to attest his identity, he hugely enjoyed
the sensation he was creating. That he looked forward with a profound
pleasure to the stir which the disclosure that he was the author of The
Sybarites would make. His face wore a beatific smile.

As Mr. Trevor continued, his voice became firmer and his manner more
majestic. It was a task distinctly to his taste, and one might have
thought he was reading the sentence of a Hastings. I was standing next
to his daughter. The look of astonishment, perhaps of horror, which I
had seen on her face when her father first began to read had now faded
into something akin to wickedness. Did she wink? I can't say, never
before having had a young woman wink at me. But the next moment her
vinaigrette was rolling down the bank towards the brook, and I was after
it. I heard her close behind me. She must have read my intentions by a
kind of mental telepathy.

"Are you going to do it?" she whispered.

"Of course," I answered. "To miss such a chance would be a downright
sin."

There was a little awe in her laugh.

"Miss Thorn is the only obstacle," I added, "and Mr. Cooke is our hope.
I think he will go by me."

"Don't let Miss Thorn worry you," she said as we climbed back.

"What do you mean?" I demanded. But she only shook her head. We were
at the top again, and Mr. Trevor was reading an appended despatch from
Buffalo, stating that Mr. Allen had been recognized there, in the latter
part of June, walking up and down the platform of the station, in a
smoking-jacket, and that he had climbed on the Chicago limited as
it pulled out. This