reading, evidently aloud and when her visitor was announced rose with
her finger still keeping the place in the closed book.

The gaze she turned on him was of surprise, almost of alarm, so that
the man on the threshold knew he was not expected.

"You received my card?" he asked quickly.

"No. Did you send one?" Then, with a little gesture of half-laughing
irritation: "It must have gone to Mr. Harvey again. He is Mr. Harley's
private secretary, and ever since we arrived it has been a comedy of
errors. The hotel force refuses to differentiate."

"I must ask you to accept my regrets for an unintentional intrusion,
Mrs. Harley. When I was told to come up, I could not guess that my card
had gone amiss."

The great financier had got to his feet and now came forward with
extended hand.

"Nevertheless we are glad to see you, Mr. Ridgway, and to get the
opportunity to express our thanks for all that you have done for us."

The cool fingers of the younger man touched his lightly before they met
those of his wife.

"Yes, we are very glad, indeed, to see you, Mr. Ridgway," she added to
her husband's welcome.

"I could not feel quite easy in my mind without hearing from your own
lips that you are none the worse for the adventures you have suffered,"
their visitor explained after they had found seats.

"Thanks to you, my wife is quite herself again, Mr. Ridgway," Harley
announced from the davenport. "Thanks also to God, who so mercifully
shelters us beneath the shadow of His wing."

But her caller preferred to force from Aline's own lips this affidavit
of health. Even his audacity could not ignore his host entirely, but it
gave him the least consideration possible. To the question which still
rested in his eyes the girl-wife answered shyly.

"Indeed, I am perfectly well. I have done nothing but sleep to-day and
yesterday. Miss Yesler was very good to me. I do not know how I can
repay the great kindness of so many friends," she said with a swift
descent of fluttering lashes to the soft cheeks upon which a faint
color began to glow.

"Perhaps they find payment for the service in doing it for you," he
suggested.

"Yet, I shall take care not to forget it," Harley said pointedly.

"Indeed!" Ridgway put it with polite insolence, the hostility in his
face scarcely veiled.

"It has pleased Providence to multiply my portion so abundantly that I
can reward those well who serve me."

"At how much do you estimate Mrs. Har