ulled herself up. "Well, if there's anything published to-morrow
you know what to expect," she said, and swept out of the room.

Evan glanced at father and son. Nothing showed in their faces but
simple relief at her going. Evan marvelled at their blindness. He had
yet to learn that habitually suspicious people never see what goes on
under their noses.

Evan had plenty of food for thought. An extraordinary situation was
suggested; one in which it behooved him to move with exceeding caution.
For the moment his best plan appeared to be to continue to keep the old
man out of trouble, while he watched and waited and found proof of what
he was already morally sure.

CHAPTER XI

THE STEAMBOAT _ERNESTINA_

On a shining morning when the Northeast wind had swept the sky as clean
as a Dutch kitchen, Evan was on his way to work, trying to make out to
himself with but poor success that all was right with him and with the
world. As a matter of fact the loveliness of the morning only put a
keener edge on his dissatisfaction. He could not but remember other
lovely mornings when the heart had been light in his breast.

Every pretty woman that he met put him in a rage. "All alike! All
alike!" he said to himself. "God help the man that takes them at face
value! Well, they'll never get their hooks in me again! I know them
now!" It did not occur to him that there was rather an inconsistency
in raging at something so perfectly unimportant; nor did he enquire too
closely into the motives that led him to search ceaselessly among the
feminine passers-by and to turn his head to look down every side
street. His search for a certain red-haired individual of the despised
sex had become involuntary.

At Thirteenth street he suddenly perceived Anway coming towards him
down the avenue, and his heart bounded. Never was a man gladder to
stumble on his rival. Luckily Evan saw him first. Hastily turning his
back, he stared in a shop window until he judged the other had passed
behind him. Then he took up the trail, forgetting his job, and indeed
everything else save that Anway must possess the clue to Corinna's
whereabouts.

He was led to the corner of Broadway and Twenty-third street, where
Anway stopped, evidently to wait for an eastbound car. This was a
little awkward, for the cars bound in that direction were but sparsely
filled at this hour. Evan bought a newspaper. Anyway boarded a
cross-town car and sat down insi