ay for
evil."

"Has she socialistic ideas? Can her hatred be for some of our plutocrats
or supposed oppressors of the people?"

"Oh, no; she is of aristocratic descent and proud of her order. The
Duclos are bourgeois, but Antoinette is a De Montfort."

Mr. Gryce suppressed all token of his instinctive amazement. This fine
American woman was not without a sense of reflected glory given by this
fact. Her sister-in-law was a De Montfort! Expressing his thanks for her
candor, he rose to depart.

"For all that," said he, "she may be at heart a _revolutionnaire_." Then,
as he noticed the negation in her look, he added softly: "The least clue
as to her present refuge would make me greatly your debtor."

"I cannot give it; I do not know it."

And somehow he believed her as absolutely as even she could desire. If he
should yet be fortunate enough to find this elusive Madame, it would have
to be through some other agency than these relatives of hers by marriage.

As he passed out, he heard a frightened gasp from somewhere back in the
hall. Turning, he asked in the most natural manner whether there were
children in the house.

Mrs. Duclos answered with some dignity that she had three daughters.

"You are fortunate, madame," he remarked with his old-fashioned bow. "I
live alone. My last grandchild left me a year ago for a man many years
my junior."

This brought the little one into his view. She was smiling, and he went
away in a state of relief marred by but one regret:

He was as ignorant as ever where to look for the mother of Angeline.

XX

MR. GRYCE AND THE UNWARY WOMAN

Nevertheless Mr. Gryce was proud of the gain he had made in his talk with
Mrs. Duclos, and he smiled as he thought of his next interview with
Sweetwater. Assurance will often accomplish much, it is true, but it
sometimes needs age to make it effective. He could not imagine either
Mrs. Duclos or her daughter yielding to the blandishments of one even as
gifted in this special direction as Sweetwater. Authority was needed as
well--the authority of long experience and an ineradicable sympathy with
human nature.

Thus he gratified himself with a few complacent thoughts. But when he
stopped to think what a great haystack New York was, and how elusive was
the needle which had escaped them now these three times, his spirits sank
a trifle, and by the time he had ridden a half-block on his way back to
Headquarters, he was at that low ebb of di