n; her life lay before him, the
various stages of an odd and erratic career. At a cabaret at Montmartre;
at a casino in the Paris Bohemian quarter; in London--at a variety hall
of amusement. And afterward!--wastrel, nomad! Throughout the writing, in
many of the documents, another name, too, a titled name, a man's, often
came and went, flitted elusively from leaf to leaf.

The reader looked at this name, wrote a page or two, and inserted them.
But his task seemed to afford him little satisfaction; his face wore an
expression not remote from discouragement; none knew better than he the
actual value, for his purpose, of the material before him. The chaff,
froth, bubble of the case!--almost contemptuously he regarded it. Had he
sought the unattainable? Certainly he had left no stone unturned, no
stone, and yet the head and front of what he sought had ever escaped
him--should he ever grasp it?--with these new secret activities menacing
him?--harassing the future?

He drew himself up suddenly, as if to shake off momentary doubt or
depression. Replacing his documents in the safe and locking it, he
walked into a room adjoining; in a bare, square place on the wall hung
foils and broadswords, and the only furnishings were the conventional
appointments of a home gymnasium.

Here, having doffed his street clothes and assumed the scant costume of
the athlete, for an hour or more he exercised vigorously, every muscle
responding to its task with an untiring ease that told of a perfect
system of training. As he stood in the glow, breathing deep and full,
his figure, with its perfect lines of strength and litheness, the superb
but not too pronounced swell of limb and shoulder, would have been the
delight of the professional expounder of dumb-bells, bars and clubs, as
the most proper medium of "fitness" and condition. Whether he exercised
for the sake of exercising, or because bodily movement served to
stimulate his mind in the consideration of problems of moment, John
Steele certainly had never been in finer physical fettle than at this
particular period of his varied and eventful career. Which proved of
service to him and his well-being, for one night, not long thereafter,
he was called upon to defend himself from a number of footpads who set
upon him.

The episode occurred in his own street near a corner, where the shadows
were black at an hour when the narrow way seemed silent and deserted.
For a block or more footfalls had sound