ork," said the girl from Sunset Ranch,
hesitatingly.

Mr. Grimes stared at her, with his wig still awry, for some moments; then
the color began to come back into his face. Helen had not realized before
that he had turned pale.

"You come into my office," he snapped, jumping up briskly. "I'll get to
the bottom of this!"

His movements were so very abrupt and he looked at her so strangely that,
to tell the truth, the girl from Sunset Ranch was a bit frightened. She
trailed along behind him, however, with only a hesitating step, passing
the wondering clerk, and heard the lock of the door of the inner office
snap behind her as Mr. Grimes shut it.

He drew heavy curtains over the door, too. The place was a gloomy
apartment until he turned on the electric light over a desk table. She saw
that there were curtains at all the windows, and at the other door, too.

"Come here," he said, beckoning her to the desk, and to a chair that stood
by it, and still speaking softly. "We will not be overheard here. Now!
Tell me what you mean by coming to me in this way?"

He shot such an ugly look at her that Helen was again startled.

"What do _you_ mean?" she returned, hiding her real emotion. "I have come
to ask some questions. Why shouldn't I?"

"You say Prince Morrell is dead?"

"Yes, sir. Nearly two months, now."

"Who sent you, then?"

"Sent me to you?" queried Helen, in wonder.

"Yes. Somebody must have sent you," said Mr. Grimes, watching her with his
little eyes, in which there seemed to burn a very baleful look.

"You are mistaken. Nobody sent me," said Helen, recovering a measure of
her courage. She believed that this strange man was a coward. But why
should he be afraid of her?

"You came clear across this continent to interview me about--about
something that is gone and forgotten--almost before you were born?"

"It isn't forgotten," returned Helen, meaningly. "Such things are never
forgotten. My father said so."

"But it's no use hauling everything to the surface of the pool again,"
grumbled Mr. Grimes.

"That is about what Uncle Starkweather says; but I do not feel that way,"
said Helen, slowly.

"Ha! Starkweather! Of course he's in it. I might have known," muttered the
old man. "So _he_ sent you to me?"

"No, sir. He objected to my coming," declared Helen, quite convinced now
that she should not deliver her uncle's letter.

"The Starkweathers are the people you came East to visit?"

"Yes, sir."

"A