nd laid her hand in his.

"Good-bye, Mary, I hope I shall ask you for that envelope back again in
a couple of days."

"God grant that it may be so," she said, "I shall suffer so till you
do."

"Yes, we have always been good friends, haven't we? Now, child, you
always used to give me a kiss before I left you then. Mayn't I have one
now?"

She held up her face, he kissed her twice, and then turned and strode
away.

"I wonder whether she will ever grow to be a woman," he said to himself,
bitterly, "and discover that there is a heart as well as brains in her
composition. There was no more of doubt or hesitation in the way in
which she held up her face to be kissed, than when she did so as a
child. Indeed, as a child, I do think she would have cried if I told her
at parting that I was going away for good. Well, it is of no use blaming
her. She can't help it if she is deficient in the one quality that is of
all the most important. Of course she has got it and will know it some
day, but at present it is latent and it is evident that I am not the man
who has the key of it. She was pleased at my pictures. It was one of her
ideas that I ought to do something, and she is pleased to find that I
have buckled to work in earnest, just as she would be pleased if
Parliament would pass a law giving to women some of the rights which she
has taken it into her head they are deprived of. However, perhaps it is
better as it is. If anything happens to me to-morrow, she will be sorry
for a week or two just as she would if she lost any other friend, while
if Arnold Dampierre goes down Minette will for a time be like a mad
woman. At any rate my five thousand will help her to carry out her
crusade. I should imagine that she won't get much aid in that direction
from her father.

"Halloa, I know that man's face," he broke off as he noticed a
well-dressed man turn in at the door of a quiet-looking residence he was
just approaching, "I know his face well; he is an Englishman, too, but I
can't think where I have seen him." He could not have told himself why
he should have given the question a second thought, but the face kept
haunting him in spite of the graver matters in his mind, and as he
reached the door of his lodgings he stopped suddenly.

"I have it," he exclaimed, "it is Cumming, the manager of the bank, the
fellow that ruined it and then absconded. I saw they were looking for
him in Spain and South America and a dozen other places, an