down to the street by an officer, my friend."

Mayo rose and hurried out.

"An officer!" Even in his despairing and innocent quest of a hearing
he was threatened with arrest! He sneaked back to his lodgings and hid
himself in the squalid apartment and nursed the misery of his soul.

That night Mayo sat till late, toiling over a letter addressed to Julius
Marston.

He despatched it by messenger at an early hour, and mustered his courage
in the middle of the forenoon and followed in person. He assumed a
boldness he did not feel in his quaking heart when he approached the
guardian of the outer office.

"Will you ask Mr. Marston if he will see the man who sent him a letter
by messenger this morning?" "What letter? Signed by what name?" "He will
understand what letter I refer to." "He will, will he?" The attendant
gave this applicant sharp scrutiny. The coast-guard captain's liberty
garments were not impressive, nor did they fit very well. Mayo displayed
the embarrassment of the man who knew he was hunted. "Do you think Mr.
Marston receives only one letter by messenger in a morning? Look here,
my man, you were in here yesterday, and I look on you as a suspicious
character. You cannot see Mr. Marston on any such excuse. Get out of
that door inside of one minute or I'll send in a police call!"

And once more Mayo fled from the danger which threatened him. He bought
a stock of newspapers at a sidewalk news-stand; his hours of loneliness
in his little room the day before had tortured him mentally. He sat
himself down and read them. The news that the Vose line had gone into
the steamship combination was interesting and significant. Evidently the
_Montana's_ lay-up had discouraged the mass of stockholders. He had
time to kill and thoughts to stifle; he went on reading scrupulously,
lingering over matters in which he had no interest, striving to occupy
his mind and drive the bitter memories and his fears away from
him. Never in his life before had he read the society tattle in the
newspapers. However, dragging along the columns, he found a paragraph
on which he dwelt for a long time. It stated that Miss Marston of
Fifth Avenue had returned by motor from a house-party in the Catskills,
accompanied by Miss Lana Vanadistine, who would be a house guest of Miss
Marston's for a few days.

That bit of news was significant. She had established her alibi; she had
reinstated herself and had turned a smooth front to the world.

Mayo