entral
Station. I don't know what train I'm going to catch, except that it's
the next one leaving on the Hudson River Division for up state. You go
on then, please, to the hospital and find out all you can about this
case and call me on the long-distance to-night--no, that won't do
either. I don't know where I'll be. I may be in Peekskill or in
Albany--I can't say which. I tell you--I'll call you at eight o'clock;
that will be better.

"No, no!" she went on impetuously, reading on his face the protest he
meant to utter. "My wrist is well bandaged and giving me no pain. I'm
thinking now of what a poor brave girl had on both her wrists when last
I saw her and of what she must have been enduring since then. I'll
explain the biggest chapter of the story to you on the way over before
you drop me at the station."

At the Grand Central she left behind a thoroughly astonished gentleman.
He was clear on some points which had been puzzling him from time to
time during this exceedingly busy morning, but still much mystified to
make out the meaning of Miss Smith's farewell remark as he put her
aboard her train.

"I only wish one thing," she had said. "I only wish I might take the
time to stop at the village of Pleasantdale and break the news to a
certain Doctor McGlore who lives there. I trust I am not unduly cattish,
but I dearly would love to watch the expression on his face when he
heard it. I think I'd do it, too, if I were not starting on the most
imperative errand that ever called me in my life."

A week later, to the day, two expected visitors were ushered into the
private chamber of the governor at Albany--one of them a small,
exceedingly well-groomed and good-looking woman in her thirties, and
one a slender pretty girl with big brown eyes and wonderful auburn hair.

"Governor," said Miss Smith, "I want the pleasure of introducing to you
the gamest girl in the whole world--Margaret Vinsolving."

He took the firm young hand she offered him. "Miss Vinsolving," he said,
"in the name of the State of New York and on behalf of it I ask your
forgiveness for the great and cruel wrong which unintentionally was done
to you."

"And I want to thank you for what you have done for me, sir," she
answered him simply.

"Don't thank me," he said. "You know the one to thank. If I had not set
the machinery of my office in motion on your behalf within five minutes
after your benefactress here reached me the other day I should have