you say, will soon be looking for you?"

"You might," he answered quickly, "but you won't."

There was a note of appeal in his voice as he pursued slowly, not as if
seeking protection, but as if hungry for friendship and most of all her
friendship, "Mrs. Dunlap, I have heard what the people at the hotel say
is your story. I think I understand, as much as a man can. Anyhow, I
know that you can understand. I have reached a point where I must tell
some one or go insane. It is only a question of time before I shall be
caught. We are all caught. Tell me," he asked eagerly, bending down
closer to her with an almost breathless intensity in his face as though
he would read her thoughts, "am I right? The story of you which I have
heard since I came here is not the truth, the whole truth. It is only
half the truth--is it not?"

Constance felt that this man was dangerously near understanding her, as
no one yet had seemed to be. It set her heart beating wildly to know
that he did. And yet she was not afraid. Somehow, although she did not
betray the answer by a word or a look, she felt that she could trust
him.

Through the door of escape from the penalty of her forgeries, which
Carlton Dunlap had thrown open for her by the manner of his death,
Constance had passed unsuspected. To return to New York, however, had
become out of the question. She had plenty of money for her present
needs, although she thought it best to say nothing about it lest some
one might wonder and stumble on the truth.

She had closed up the little studio apartment, and had gone to a quiet
resort in the pines. Here, at least, she thought she might live
unobserved until she could plan out the tangled future of her life.

There had seemed to be no need to conceal her identity, and she had
felt it better not to do so. She knew that her story would follow her,
and it had. She was prepared for that. She was prepared for the pity
and condescension of the gossips and had made up her mind to stand
aloof.

Then came a day when a stranger had registered at the hotel. She had
not noticed him especially, but it was not long before she realized
that he was noticing her. Was he a detective? Had he found out the
truth in some uncanny way? She felt sure that the name on the hotel
register, Malcolm Dodd, was not his real name.

Constance had not been surprised when the head waiter had seated the
young man at her table. No doubt he had manoeuvred it so. Nor did she
av