thought she wore a dress, and was quite sure, though not certain, that
she had on either a shawl, or some other outside garment. He remembered
her distinctly, because the half-dollar she gave him turned out to be
counterfeit, and he got rid of it by giving it to a blind beggar; after
which, he said, he sneaked round the corner, and laughed till he was red
in the face, to think how slick that beggar was fooled.

This might be ANN, they thought, but to make sure, they telegraphed to
six different stations, promising a small reward in case their pursuit
was successful. In due time the answers came, all very much alike, and
to the effect that a woman, answering their description, was seen to
take such and such a train, and that the reward would reach them at the
following address, etc.; at which they went home rather discouraged, to
see what ARCHIBALD had accomplished.

He said he went to the Half-way House, and questioned Mrs. BACKUP and
TEDDY for four hours, without finding out the first thing. "You're a
numskull," said BELINDA. "If I hadn't got any more brains than you have,
I'd swap myself off for a dog, and then kill the dog."

"I don't believe the folks there would tell, anyhow," said the Hon.
MICHAEL; "she's probably hired 'em to keep mum."

Now the fact was, ARCHIBALD hadn't been near the Half-way House at all.
There wasn't money enough in the State to hire him to do so, after the
fearful ordeal he had there passed through. So he hid in the woods all
day, and rehearsed this terrible falsehood, making himself miserable by
repeating those extracts from the catechism which refer to the future
abode of liars.

Though thus foiled in their active investigations, they still held long
consultations on the absorbing topic, and in which, to ARCHIBALD'S
horror, he is often obliged to participate. He has had it on his
tongue's end forty times to tell BELINDA all about his forced marriage
with ANN at the Half-way House. He has even dreamed, on two separate
nights, that he has done so, but he woke up both times in a cold, clammy
sort of ooze, and it has naturally shaken his confidence, and so the
words stick in his throat. And he remembers ANN'S horrible threat of
coming for him when she wants him, and he makes it a point of doing all
his out-door business before dark, and the bare mention of her name will
make him start and glare wildly about him. And still BELINDA courts him
more persistently than ever, and it is a scene