ame more and more delicate. They found themselves alone much of the
time now. Beverley was, or pretended to be, busy on other matters and
avoided Dodge as much as possible. Only the regular routine affairs
passed through his hands, but he said nothing. It gave him more time
with her. Dumont came in as rarely as it was possible.

And as they worked along gathering the data Constance came to admire
Murray more than ever. She worked patiently over the big books, taking
only those on which the accountant was not engaged at such times as she
could get them without exciting suspicion. Together they dug out the
extent of the frauds that had been practiced on the Government for
years back. From the letter files they rescued notes and orders and
letters, pieced them together into as near a continuous record as they
could make. With his own knowledge of the books Dodge could count on
making better progress on the essential things than the regular
accountant of the audit company. He felt sure that they would finish
sooner and that they would have a closer report of the frauds of all
kinds than could be uncovered by the man who had been set on the trail
of Dodge to discover just how much of the illicit gains he had taken
for himself.

Constance became aware soon that whenever she left the office at night
she was being followed. She had at first studiously repelled the offers
of Murray to see her home. It was not that he had taken advantage of
the situation into which she had put herself. He would never have done
that. Still, she wished a little more time to analyze her own
conflicting feelings toward him. Then, too, several times in the
crowded subway cars she had noticed a face that was familiar. It was
Drummond, never looking directly at her, always engrossed in something
else, yet never failing to note where she was going. That must be, she
reasoned, some of the work of Beverley and Dumont.

Murray was now working feverishly. As he worked he found himself
feeling differently toward the whole affair. He actually came to enjoy
it with all its risks and uncertainty, to enjoy gathering the data
which, he should have said, ought really to be destroyed. Often he
caught himself wishing that everything had come out all right in the
end and that Constance really was his private secretary.

Every moment with her seemed now to pass so quickly that he would
willingly have smashed all the clocks and destroyed all the calendars.
Associati