he ken of local police
supervision, and that in the record there was no trace or indication of
her child. He was going over those infelix records of early
transgressions with the eye of trained experience, making notes from
time to time for his official use, and yet always watchful of his
secret quest, when suddenly he stopped with a quickened pulse. In the
record of an affray at a gambling-house, one of the parties had sought
refuge in the rooms of "Kate Howard," who was represented before the
magistrate by HER PROTECTOR, JUAN DE ARGUELLO. The date given was
contemporary with the beginning of the Trust, but that proved nothing.
But the name--had it any significance, or was it a grim coincidence,
that spoke even more terribly and hopelessly of the woman's promiscuous
frailty? He again attacked the entire report, but there was no other
record of her name. Even that would have passed any eye less eager and
watchful than his own.

He laid the reports aside, and took up the proof-slip again. Was there
any man living but himself and Pendleton who would connect these two
statements? That her relations with this Arguello were brief and not
generally known was evident from Pendleton's ignorance of the fact.
But he must see him again, and at once. Perhaps he might have acquired
some information from Yerba; the young girl might have given to his age
that confidence she had withheld from the younger man; indeed, he
remembered with a flush it was partly in that hope he had induced the
colonel to go to Santa Clara. He put the proof-slip in his pocket and
stepped to the door of the next room.

"You need not write that letter to Slate, Tony. I will see him myself.
I am going to San Francisco to-night."

"And do you want anything copied from the reports, sir?"

Paul quickly swept them from the table into his drawer, and locked it.
"Not now, thank you. I'll finish my notes later."

The next morning Paul was in San Francisco, and had again crossed the
portals of the Golden Gate Hotel. He had been already told that the
doom of that palatial edifice was sealed by the laying of the
cornerstone of a new erection in the next square that should utterly
eclipse it; he even fancied that it had already lost its freshness, and
its meretricious glitter had been tarnished. But when he had ordered
his breakfast he made his way to the public parlor, happily deserted at
that early hour. It was here that he had first seen her. She was