,
Thin-lips trots out with an ugly grin on his mug--an' Uncle Hunch,
gettin' soberer an' soberer by the minute, trots after him with his
good lamp workin' overtime."

Carl glanced at the paper.

"Yes?" he encouraged.

"Well," said Hunch with a sheepish grin that was rendered somewhat
sinister by the fixed eye, "I jostled him real rude in a crowd an'
picked his pocket. An' there yuh are!"

There was some slight rustle of greenish paper in the handshake.

"I'm mighty grateful," said Carl. "That paper cost me a couple of
hours of laborious preparation. It's a duplicate, Hunch, for the
purpose of decoy. The original's in safe deposit."

CHAPTER L

THE OTHER CANDLESTICK

The closing of the outer door betokened the departure of Mr. Dorrigan.

Carl swiftly marked the second candlestick where the shallow receptacle
in the other had begun and applied the thin, fine edge of a craftsman's
saw. When at length the candled branches lay upon the table, the light
of the lanterns overhead revealed, as he had hoped, a second paper.

He was to read the faded sheets, with staring, incredulous eyes, and
learn that its contents were utterly unrelated to the contents of the
other.

I am impelled by one of the damnable whims which sway me at times to my
own undoing, to trust to some chance discovery that which under oath I
may never deliberately reveal with my lips. It is the history of
certain events which have heavily shadowed my life and brought me up
with a tight rein from a life of reckless whim and adventure to one of
terrible suffering. I write this with a wild hope that may never be
gratified.

The first foreshadowing of this singular cloud came one night in the
Adirondack hunting lodge of Norman Westfall, a young Southerner whose
inheritance of a childless uncle's millions had made him a conspicuous
figure months before. He was living there with his sister and both, as
usual, were at odds with the grim old father down South who resented
the wild, unconventional strain that had come into his family through
the blood of his wife.

They were a wild, handsome, reckless pair--Ann and Norman
Westfall--inseparable companions in wild adventure for which another
woman would have neither the endurance nor the inclination.

Ann was a strong, beautiful, impetuous woman with rich coloring;
deliciously feminine in her quieter moments, incredibly daring in
others; keen-brained, cultured, and utterly unconventional;