chance as anybody." She
shrugged her shoulders. "I speak as though I were some wonderful prize
to be bestowed; I assure you I do not feel at all like that. I have a
very humble opinion of my own qualities. I do not think I have felt so
meek or so modest about my own qualities as I do just now."

He walked with her to the end of the park, and saw her into a taxicab,
standing on the pavement and watching as she was whirled into the
enveloping traffic, out of sight.

As for Doris Gray, she herself was suffering from some uneasiness of
mind. She needed a shock to make her realize one way or the other where
her affections lay. Poltavo loomed very largely; his face, his voice,
the very atmosphere which enveloped him, was constantly present with
her.

She reached Brakely Square and would have passed straight up to her
room, but the butler, with an air of importance, stopped her.

"I have a letter here, miss. It is very urgent. The messenger asked that
it should be placed in your hands at the earliest possible moment."

She took the letter from him. It was addressed to her in typewritten
characters. She stripped the envelope and found yet another inside. On
it was typewritten:

"Read this letter when you are absolutely alone. Lock the door and be
sure that nobody is near when you read it."

She raised her pretty eyebrows. What mystery was this? she asked. Still,
she was curious enough to carry out the request. She went straight to
her own room, opened the envelope, and took out a letter containing half
a dozen lines of writing.

She gasped, and went white, for she recognized the hand the moment her
eyes fell upon it. The letter she held in her shaking hand ran:

"I command you to marry Frank Doughton within seven days. My whole
fortune and my very life may depend upon this."

It was signed "Gregory Farrington," and heavily underlined beneath the
signature were the words, "Burn this, as you value my safety."

* * * * *

T. B. Smith stepped briskly into the office of his chief and closed the
door behind him.

"What is the news?" asked Sir George, looking up.

"I can tell you all the news that I know," said T. B., "and a great deal
that I do not know, but only surmise."

"Let us hear the facts first and the romance afterwards," growled Sir
George, leaning back in his chair.

"Fact one," said T. B. drawing up a chair to the table, and ticking off
his fact on the first fing