vice, had carried off when she deserted both her husband and her
husband's bed and board. And she might have inserted just below the
pinhole the illuminating note that, after unfastening the string, Dalton
had forgotten to return it.

And then there had come an August morning--the following Monday, to be
exact--when, his coffee untasted, he had sat staring at a paragraph in
the financial column of a London paper, not daring to lay it down for
fear she would pick it up. It gave a full and detailed account of the
discovery of a series of certificates bearing duplicate numbers, said
duplicates claiming to be the genuine shares of the Bawhadder Rubber
Co., Ltd. It also hinted at a searching investigation about to be made
by a financial committee of the highest standing at its next regular
meeting, but a few days off. More important still was a crisp editorial,
charging the directors of the aforesaid company, and particularly its
promoter--name withheld--with irregularities of the gravest import.

And it was on this same Monday morning--another pinhole, made with a big
black pin would serve best here--before the stone-cold coffee and the
dry, uneaten toast had been sent away, that there had arrived a most
important telegram (that is, Dalton had SAID it had arrived) ordering
him back to London on business of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE. So urgent were
the summons that he was forced to leave at once--so he explained to the
manager of the hotel--and as madame wished to avoid the night journey
by way of Ostend--the channel being almost always rough, even in summer,
and she easily disturbed--he had decided to take the shorter and more
comfortable route, and would the urbane and obliging gentleman please
secure two tickets to London by way of Calais and Dover? This would give
them a day in Paris at the house of a friend, and the next morning would
see them safely landed in London, in ample time for the business in
question.

The pins can be dispensed with now; so can the pencil and so can any
special entries. Henceforth life for these two exiles was to be one long
toboggan slide, with every post they passed marking a lower level. The
sled with its occupants made no stop at Paris nor did it go by way of
Calais nor did it reach Dover. It swooped on down to Havre, the steamer
sailing an hour after the train arrived, crossed the ocean at full
speed, and dumped its two passengers one hot August night in front of a
cheap and inconspicuous h