t she tell you anything about him when she gave
you her instructions?"

"Not a word. She said, 'You will hear from him if ever this will is
published. He has a right to the money and I entreat you to show your
respect for me by seeing that he gets it without any unnecessary
trouble.' That was all she said or would say. Your wife was a woman of
powerful character, Mr. Ransom. My little arts counted for nothing in any
difference of opinion between us."

"Auchincloss!" repeated Ransom. "Another unknown quantity in the problem
of my poor girl's life. What a tangle! Do you wonder that I am overcome
by it? Anitra--the so-called brother--and now this Auchincloss!"

"Right, Ransom, I share your confusion."

"Do you?" The words came very slowly, penetratingly. "Haven't you some
idea--some strange, possibly half-formed notion or secret intuition which
might afford some clew to this labyrinth? I have been told that lawyers
have a knack of getting at the bottom of human conduct and affairs. You
have had a wide experience; does it not suggest some answer to this
problem which will harmonize all its discordant elements and make clear
its various complications?"

Mr. Harper shook his head, but there was a restrained excitement in his
manner which was not altogether the reflection of that which dominated
Ransom, and the latter, observing it, leaned across the table till their
faces almost touched.

"Do you guess my thought?" he whispered. "Look at me and tell me if you
guess my thought."

The lawyer hesitated, eying well the trembling lip, the changing color,
the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slow
smile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered in
a barely audible murmur:

"I think I do. I may be mad, but I think I do."

The other sank back with a sigh charged with what the lawyer interpreted
as relief. Mr. Harper reseated himself, and for a moment neither looked
at the other, and neither spoke; it would almost seem as if neither
breathed. Then, as a bird, deceived by the silence, hopped to the window
sill and began its cheep, "cheep," Mr. Ransom broke the spell by saying
in low but studiously business-like tones:

"Have you thought it worth while to study the ground under her window or
anywhere else for footprints? It might not be amiss; what do you think
about it?"

"Let us go," readily acquiesced the lawyer, rising to his feet with an
honest show of alacrity; "after whic