in daily terror of a discovery which was soon to
follow.

She had gone out one day to pay a call on some one to whom Rhees Grier,
the Chicago sculptor, had given her an introduction. Crossing Central
Park in one of the new French machines which Cowperwood had purchased
for her indulgence, her glance wandered down a branch road to where
another automobile similar to her own was stalled. It was early in the
afternoon, at which time Cowperwood was presumably engaged in Wall
Street. Yet there he was, and with him two women, neither of whom, in
the speed of passing, could Aileen quite make out. She had her car
halted and driven to within seeing-distance behind a clump of bushes.
A chauffeur whom she did not know was tinkering at a handsome machine,
while on the grass near by stood Cowperwood and a tall, slender girl
with red hair somewhat like Aileen's own. Her expression was aloof,
poetic, rhapsodical. Aileen could not analyze it, but it fixed her
attention completely. In the tonneau sat an elderly lady, whom Aileen
at once assumed to be the girl's mother. Who were they? What was
Cowperwood doing here in the Park at this hour? Where were they going?
With a horrible retch of envy she noted upon Cowperwood's face a smile
the like and import of which she well knew. How often she had seen it
years and years before! Having escaped detection, she ordered her
chauffeur to follow the car, which soon started, at a safe distance.
She saw Cowperwood and the two ladies put down at one of the great
hotels, and followed them into the dining-room, where, from behind a
screen, after the most careful manoeuvering, she had an opportunity of
studying them at her leisure. She drank in every detail of Berenice's
face--the delicately pointed chin, the clear, fixed blue eyes, the
straight, sensitive nose and tawny hair. Calling the head waiter, she
inquired the names of the two women, and in return for a liberal tip
was informed at once. "Mrs. Ira Carter, I believe, and her daughter,
Miss Fleming, Miss Berenice Fleming. Mrs. Carter was Mrs. Fleming
once." Aileen followed them out eventually, and in her own car pursued
them to their door, into which Cowperwood also disappeared. The next
day, by telephoning the apartment to make inquiry, she learned that
they actually lived there. After a few days of brooding she employed a
detective, and learned that Cowperwood was a constant visitor at the
Carters', that the machine in which they r