carried her off in triumph to his clan or tribe.
To-day he must, he would win her by more subtle means.

His mind was made up. She had pointed the way. That night Dodge left
Woodlake hastily for New York.

To Constance a new purpose seemed to have entered into a barren life.
She was almost gay as she packed her trunks and grips and quietly
slipped into the city a few hours later and registered at a quiet hotel
for business women.

Sure enough in the Star the next morning was the advertisement. She
wrote in a formal way, giving her telephone number. That afternoon,
apparently as soon as the letter had been delivered, a call came. The
following morning she was the private secretary of Murray Dodge,
sitting unobtrusively before a typewriter desk in a sort of little
anteroom that guarded the door to his office.

She took pains to act the part of private secretary and no more. As
appeared natural to the rest of the office force at first she was much
with Murray, who made the most elaborate explanations of the detail of
the business.

"Do they suspect anything?" she asked anxiously as soon as they were
absolutely alone.

"I think so," he replied. "They said nothing except that they had not
expected me back so soon, I think the 'so soon' was an afterthought.
They didn't expect me back at all. For," he added significantly, "I've
been in fear and trembling until I could get you. They already have
asked the regular audit company to go over the books in advance of the
time when we usually employ them. I didn't ask why. I merely accepted
it with a nod. It might have meant bringing matters to a crisis now."

He felt safer with Constance installed as his private secretary. True,
Beverley and Dumont had viewed her from the start with suspicion.

Constance had been thinking hard out in her little office since she had
begun to understand how matters stood. "Well?" she demanded. "What of
it? Don't try to conceal it. Let them discover it. Go further. Dare
them. Court exposure."

It was bold and ingenious. What a woman she was for meeting
emergencies. Murray, who had a will that had been accustomed to bend
others to his purposes except in the instance where they had bent him
and nearly broken him, recognized the masterful mind of Constance. He
was willing to allow her to play the game.

Thus Constance began collecting the very data that would have sent
Murray to jail for bribery. Day by day as she worked on, the situation
bec