ay suddenly, without saying so much as
good-bye to any of us." She could not help but add: "She has changed so
greatly that you would never know her. She is no longer the dark-eyed
beauty whom you remember; she looks ten years older. She never smiles
now, and there is a horrible look in her eyes--like the cunning gleam
one sees in the eyes of the insane; and, oh! sir, let me warn
you--_you_, of all men--for the love of Heaven, do not cross her path!
Remember, I--I warn you."

CHAPTER XXIV.

Harry Kendal threw back his dark, handsome head with a gesture of
disdain and looked at the girl.

"I do not know of any reason why you should warn _me_, above all other
men, that it is dangerous to cross Miss Holt's path," he said. "Almost
any young man will flirt with a pretty girl when he finds her so _very_
willing. She understood that it was only a flirtation; but when I met
your little friend Dorothy, of course all that nonsense with Nadine
ceased."

"Nadine did not call it a flirtation," returned the girl, gravely. "You
might call it that. She thought of it differently, I am sure."

"Where is Jessie Staples?" he asked, abruptly, to change the
embarrassing subject.

"She, too, has left the bindery," was the unexpected reply. "There have
been great changes among the people in this book-bindery within the last
few months. A young man connected with the place had quite a sum of
money left him, and Jessie Staples was a great favorite with this young
man's mother, so at their invitation Jessie went to live with them."

Finding that she had nothing more to tell him, Kendal soon after took
his departure.

He was desperate as he walked along the street.

"What in the name of Heaven shall I do?" he cried. "One day of the
fortnight has already passed, and I have not even the slightest clew to
Dorothy's whereabouts." And in that hour in which he realized that she
was indeed lost to him he knew how well he actually loved the girl.
Iris' fickleness had killed his mad infatuation at one blow, and,
man-like, his heart returned at once to its old allegiance.

Now that he knew that it was only a question of the merest chance of
ever finding Dorothy, his very soul seemed to grow wild with anxiety.

Suddenly a thought born of desperation occurred to him--why not consult
a fortune-teller as a last resort? It just flashed across his brain, an
advertisement he had read and laughed over in one of the New York papers
a few days b