y hostile to all the principles
involved in her belief that the whole wide world of action should in
justice lie as much open to woman to choose from as to man.

Without cessation Katherine kept eyes and mind on Blake. She searched
out and pondered over the thousand possible details and ramifications
his conspiracy might have. No human plan was a perfect plan. By
patiently watching and studying every point there was a chance that
she might discover one detail, one slip, one oversight, that would
give her the key to the case.

One of the thousand possibilities was that he had an active partner in
his scheme. Since no such partner was visible in the open, it was
likely that his associate was a man with whom Blake wished to have
seemingly no relations. Were this conjecture true, then naturally he
would meet this confederate in secret. She began to think upon all
possible means and places of holding secret conferences. Such a
meeting might be held there in Westville in the dead of night. It
might be held in any large city in which individuals might lose
themselves--Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Chicago. It might be
held at any appointed spot within the radius of an automobile journey.

Katherine analyzed every possible place of this last possibility. She
began to watch, as she watched other possibilities, the comings and
goings of the Blake automobile. It occurred to her that, if anything
were in this conjecture, the meeting would be held at night; and then,
a little later, it occurred to her to make a certain regular
observation. The Blake garage and the West stable stood side by side
and opened into the same alley. Every evening while Blake's car was
being cleaned--if it had been in use during the day--Katherine went
out to say good night to her saddle horse, and as she was on friendly
terms with Blake's man she contrived, while exchanging a word with
him, to read the mileage record of the speedometer. This observation
she carried on with no higher hope of anything resulting from it than
from any of a score of other measures. It was merely one detail of her
all-embracing vigilance.

Every night she sat on watch--the evening's earlier half usually in
the rustic summer-house in the backyard, the latter part at her
bedroom window. One night after most of Westville was in bed, her
long, patient vigil was rewarded by seeing the Blake automobile slip
out with a single vague figure at the wheel and turn into the back