often bear others,
as one of the necessities of my profession. I am known here to those
who know me at all as one of those secret service men you have no
doubt heard or read of. In other words----'

'A detective?' She bent forward and scanned my face narrowly.

'When I saw you in company with the little brunette, as I have since
called her for want of a better title, I was at first amazed and
inclined to doubt my own sagacity; but when--I am making a clean
breast of it, Miss Jenrys--when I followed you, doubtful what course
to pursue, I saw you joined by a gentleman, and I saw the brunette
slip away from you as she would hardly have done, as you would hardly
have allowed her to do, had she been friend or acquaintance. I am
enrolled here as a "special," but I came, in company with another,
with a definite object in view. Within these grounds are several
persons under suspicion, and whom we are hoping to capture and
convict, and when I tell you that only yesterday I learned that this
same little brunette who claimed your property and friendship was seen
in company with two suspected persons, you will hardly wonder that
what I had attempted to do from purest courtesy from one stranger to
another, and that other a lady, I felt impelled to do from a sense of
duty, as well as desire to save one whom I had seen to be alone, and
who might, for aught I could tell, be menaced by some unsuspected
danger.'

There was no fear on her face, only a slightly troubled look, as she
asked:

'What do you mean?'

'Simply that it is my duty to warn you, and to ask you if you know of
any reason why you should be followed, or watched, or menaced by any
manner of danger?'

'No'--she slowly shook her fair head--'no reason whatever.'

'And may I ask you about this person, this brunette? I would not say
'this woman.''

She started slightly, and leaned toward me.

'Is she here still?' she whispered.

I turned my head and cast a deliberate glance around the room.

'I do not see her,' I said; 'but she may be below, with an eye on the
staircase.'

'It's more than likely. It's little I can tell you,' she said. 'She
ran up to me that morning at the gate, her face beaming and her hand
held out, and when she was close to me, and I drew away from her, she
began the most profuse apologies: she was very near-sighted, and she
had mistaken me for an old acquaintance she had not seen for some
time; then she kept on by my side, prattling about he