seeing this through a sudden mist
of tears, thought to be the bravest, most pitiable smile that ever she
had seen.

The train doubled round an abrupt curve, in the sharpness of its swing
almost throwing her off her feet, and when she had regained her balance
and looked again the station was furlongs behind her, hidden from sight
by intervening buildings.

It was that smile of farewell which acted as a flux to carry into the
recipient's mind a resolution already forming. Into things her emotions
were likely to lead her headlong and impetuously, but for a way out of
them this somewhat unusual young woman named Smith generally had for
her guide a certain clear quality of reasoning, backed by an intuition
which helped her frequently to achieve satisfactory results. So it was
with her in this instance.

Her share of the business in Troy completed, as speedily it was, she
stayed in Albany for half a day on her way back and called upon the
governor. At first sight he liked her, for her good looks, for her
trigness, her directness and more than any of these for the excellent
mental poise which so patently was a part of her. The outcome of her
visit to him and his enthusiastic admiration for her was that the
district attorney of Westchester County shortly thereafter instituted an
investigation, the chief fruitage of that investigation being embodied
in a somewhat longish letter from him, which Miss Smith read in her
studio apartment one afternoon perhaps three weeks after the date of her
meeting on trainboard with that adjudged maniac, the girl Margaret
Vinsolving.

To the letter was a polite preamble. She skipped it. We may do well to
follow her lead and come to the body of it, which ran like this:

"Mrs. Janet Vinsolving is the widow of a colonel in our Regular Army. My
information is that she is a woman of culture and refinement. Since the
death of her husband some eight years ago she has been residing in a
small home which she owns in the outskirts of Pleasantdale village in
this county. From the fact that she keeps no servants and from other
facts brought to me I gather that she is in very modest circumstances.
She has been living quite alone except for the daughter, Margaret, who
is her only child. The daughter was educated in the public schools of
the county. Lately she has been studying applied designing with a view
to becoming an interior decorator."

"Ah, now I know another reason why I was drawn to her!" int