tty didn't class herself with these heroines; she only felt as they
did, that there was something to be done. On that something a man's
happiness depended; on it another woman's happiness depended too; on
it her own happiness depended, since if it wasn't done she would feel
herself a clog to be cursed. To be cursed by the prince would mean
anguish far more terrible than any punishment society could mete out
to her.

"If you feel equal to it we might go now, dear," Miss Towell
suggested, on waking from her dreams of what might have been. "I wish
I could take you in a taxi; but I daresay you won't mind the tram."

Letty rose briskly. "No, I shan't mind it at all." She looked Miss
Towell significantly in the eyes, hoping that her words would carry
all the meaning she was putting into them. "I shan't mind--anything
you want me to do, no matter what."

Miss Towell smiled, sweetly. "Thank you, dear. That'll be very nice. I
shan't ask you to do much, because it's your problem, you know, and
you must work it out. I'll stand by; but standing by is about all we
can do for each other, when problems have to be faced. Don't you think
it is?"

As this language meant nothing to Letty, she thanked the nurse, smiled
at the other patients, and, trudging at Miss Towell's side with her
quaintly sturdy grace, went forth to her great sacrifice.

* * * * *

Allerton had drawn from his conversation with Barbara this one
practical suggestion. As he had months before consulted his lawyer,
Mr. Nailes, as to ways of losing Letty after she had been found, he
might consult him as to ways of finding her now that she had been
lost. Mr. Nailes would not go to the police. He would apply to some
discreet house of detectives who would do the work discreetly.

"Then, I presume, you've changed your mind about this marriage," was
Mr. Nailes' not unnatural inference, "and mean to go on with it."

"N-not exactly." Allerton was still unable to define his intentions.
"I only don't want her to disappear--like this."

Mr. Nailes pondered. He was a tall, raw-boned man, of raw-boned
countenance, to whom the law represented no system of divine justice,
but a means by which Eugene Nailes could make money, as his father had
made it before him. Having inherited his father's practice he had
inherited Rashleigh Allerton, the two fathers having had a
long-standing business connection. Mr. Nailes had no high opinion of
Ra