had even a suspicion of."

"Good heavens!" Ruyler recalled the apparent intimacy of his
mother-in-law and the senior member of the respectable firm of Lawton and
Cross. If "Madame Delano" were the former Mrs. Lawton, how many things
would be explained.

"This woman's name was Marie all right, and she was French, although she
seems to have been adopted by some people named Dubois and brought up in
California. She was quite the proper thing in high society, but the
trouble was that she liked another sort better. She was a regular
fly-by-night. It began when Norton Moore, a rotten limb of one of the
grandest trees in San Francisco Society--so respectable they didn't know
there was any side to life but their own--sneaked Mrs. Lawton and three
girls out of his mother's house one night when she was givin' a ball, put
'em in a hack and took 'em down to Gabrielle's. There they spent an hour
lookin' at Gabrielle's swell bunch dressed up and doin' the grand society
act with some of the men-about-town. Then they danced some and opened a
bottle or two.

"I never heard that this little jaunt hurt the girls any, but it woke up
something in Mrs. Lawton. After that--well, there are stories without
end. Won't take up your time tellin' them. The upshot was that one night
Lawton, who took a fling himself once in a while, met her at Gabrielle's
or some other joint, and she went East a day or two after. I suppose he
didn't get a divorce, partly on account of the kid--Aileen--partly
because he had no intention of trying his luck again."

"But is there any evidence that she had another child--that she
hid away?"

"No, but it might easy have been. This life went on for about eight
years, and it was at least five that she and Lawton merely lived under
the same roof for the sake of Aileen. They never did get on. That much,
at least, was well known. It might easy be--"

Ruyler made a rapid calculation. Aileen Lawton was just about three years
older than Helene. She was fair like her father. There was no resemblance
between her and his wife, but the intimacy between them had been
spontaneous and had never lapsed. She had grown up quite unrestrained and
spoilt, and broken three engagements, and was always rushing about
proclaiming in one breath, that California was the greatest place on
earth and in the next that she should go mad if she didn't get out and
have a change. Another grievance was that although her father let her
have her own wa