oking houses," he slowly remarked,
"and, as for persons, the most honest often wear a lowering look in
which an unbridled imagination can see guilt. I never trust to
appearances of that kind."

"What else can you trust in, when a case is as impenetrable as this
one?" I asked.

His finger, going slower and slower, suddenly stopped.

"In my knowledge of persons," he replied. "In my knowledge of their
fears, their hopes, and their individual concerns. If I were twenty
years younger"--here he stole a glance at me in the mirror which made me
bridle; did he think I was only twenty years younger than himself?--"I
would," he went on, "make myself so acquainted with every man, woman,
and child there, that--" Here he drew himself up with a jerk. "But the
day for that is passed," said he. "I am too old and too crippled to
succeed in such an undertaking. Having been there once, I am a marked
man. My very walk betrays me. He whose good fortune it will be to get at
the bottom of these people's hearts must awaken no suspicions as to his
connection with the police. Indeed, I do not think that any man can
succeed in doing this now."

I started. This was a frank showing of his hand at least. No man! It was
then a woman's aid he was after. I laughed as I thought of it. I had not
thought him either so presumptuous or so appreciative of talents of a
character so directly in line with his own.

"Don't you agree with me, madam?"

I did agree with him; but I had a character of great dignity to
maintain, so I simply surveyed him with an air of well-tempered
severity.

"I do not know of any woman who would undertake such a task," I calmly
observed.

"No?" he smiled with that air of forbearance which is so exasperating to
me. "Well, perhaps there isn't any such woman to be found. It would take
one of very uncommon characteristics, I own."

"Pish!" I cried. "Not so very!"

"Indeed, I think you have not fully taken in the case," he urged in
quiet superiority. "The people there are of the higher order of country
folk. Many of them are of extreme refinement. One family"--here his tone
changed a trifle--"is poor enough and cultivated enough to interest even
such a woman as yourself."

"Indeed!" I ejaculated, with just a touch of my father's hauteur to hide
the stir of curiosity his words naturally evoked.

"It is in some such home," he continued with an ease that should have
warned me he had started on this pursuit with a quiet determi