emembered how she had escaped from her uncle's house by flitting out of
the side entrance. For she had found herself within the last few hours a
very important person indeed. From the moment the doctor's carriage had
stopped before the door, a little stream of callers, reporters, business
friends, and others whom she knew nothing of, had thronged the place,
unwilling to depart without some definite news of this unexpected
illness, and all of them anxious to obtain a word or two with her.
Already a "Special" was being sold on the streets, and in big black
letters she read of the alarming illness of Phineas Duge. She had left
both his secretaries, young men with whom as yet she had exchanged only
a few words, hard at work opening letters and answering telegrams. She
alone was free from all anxiety, for she had had a few words with her
uncle before she came out, and at her entrance the languor of the sick
man disappeared at once, and he had spoken to her with something of the
enjoyment of a boy enjoying a huge joke.

She paused every now and then to look in the shop windows, and make a
few purchases. Then, just as she was leaving a store, and hesitating for
a moment which way to continue her walk, a man stopped suddenly before
her and raised his hat. It was Stephen Weiss, gaunt, ill-dressed, easily
recognizable. He was evidently glad to see her.

"This is real good fortune, Miss Longworth," he said, holding her hand
in his, as though afraid that she might slip away. "I have just left
your house, but I couldn't seem to get hold of anything very definite
about this sudden attack of your uncle's."

"I know very little about it myself," Virginia answered. "The doctor had
only just been when I came away. He said, I believe, that it was only a
matter of a complete rest for several days, perhaps a week, and then
possibly a short holiday."

Mr. Weiss shook his head thoughtfully.

"I am much relieved to hear that," he declared. "Your uncle is one of my
oldest friends, and, apart from that, we are concerned in one or two
very important speculations just now, things which you, young lady,
would scarcely understand; but it would be awkward if he were laid up."

"The doctor thinks," Virginia remarked, "that he will be able to attend
to anything very necessary in four or five days. They will not allow
him, however, even to look at a newspaper until then."

Mr. Weiss nodded thoughtfully.

"You were going back toward the house, I