."

There was a dangerous naivete in the way she uttered the last three
words which made me suspect the actress. Indeed I was quite conscious as
I met her thrilling and expressive glance, that I should never feel
again the same confidence in her sincerity. My judgment had been
confounded and my insight rendered helpless by what I had heard of her
art, and the fact that she had once been a capable player of "parts."

But I was man enough and detective enough not to betray my suspicion,
now that I was brought face to face with her. It had always been latent
in my breast, even in the very midst of my greatest admiration for her.
Yet I had never acknowledged to myself of what I suspected her, nor did
I now--not quite--not enough to give that point to my attack which would
have insured me immediate victory or defeat. I was obliged to feel my
way and so answered, with every appearance of friendly confidence:

"I fear then that I shall be obliged to ask your pardon. I have no good
news; rather what might be called, if not bad, of a very perplexing
character. The child has been traced"--here I purposely let my voice
halt for an instant--"here."

"Here?" her eyes opened, her lips parted in a look of surprise so
ingenuous that involuntarily I felt forced to add, by way of
explanation:

"The child, I mean, who was carried screaming along the highway in a
wagon and for whom the police--and others--have for two days been
looking."

"Oh!" she ejaculated with a slight turn of her head aside as she
motioned me toward a chair. "And is that child Gwendolen? Or don't you
know?" She was all eagerness as she again faced me.

"That will be known to-morrow," I rejoined, resisting the beautiful
brightness of her face with an effort that must have left its mark on my
own features; for she smiled with unconscious triumph as she held my
eyes for a minute in hers saying softly, "O how you excite me! Tell me
more. Where was the wagon found? Who is with it? And how much of all
this have you told Mrs. Ocumpaugh?"

With the last question she had risen, involuntarily, it seemed, and as
though she would rush to her friend if I did not at once reassure her of
that friend's knowledge of a fact which seemed to throw a gleam of hope
upon a situation hitherto entirely unrelieved.

"Mrs. Ocumpaugh has been told nothing," I hastily returned, answering
the last and most important question first. "Nor must she be; at least
not till certainty replaces