t
her lips and let him shout. If he still wished to think that she was
deaf as a post she would not correct him again. Perhaps if her
suspicions should prove to be justified it would help her to discover
his plans.

In her room that evening Mary brought from her trunk the ear-'phone she
had cast aside. She had packed it away with a sigh of relief and yet a
lingering fear for the future, and already she was putting it on. At
the back of the transmitter there was a mechanical device which
regulated the intensity of the sound. When she settled the clasp
across her head and hung the 'phone over her ear she set it at normal
and then advanced the dial until she could hear the faintest noise.
The roar of the lobby, drifting in through the transom, became
separated into its various sounds. She could hear men talking and
outbursts of laughter and the scrape of moving chairs. The murmur of
conversation in the adjoining room became a spat between husband and
wife and, ashamed of her eavesdropping, she put down the instrument and
looked about, half afraid.

As the doctor through his stethoscope can hear the inrush of air as it
is drawn into the patient's lungs, or the surge of blood as it is
pumped through the heart with every telltale gurgle of the valves; so
with that powerful instrument she could hear through walls and know
what was being said. It was a wonderful advantage to have over these
men if she discovered that there was treachery afoot and the following
morning, to test it out, she wore her 'phone to the office.

"Mr. Jepson," she said as he rose nervously to meet her, "I'd like to
bring my books down to date. Of course it is mostly a matter of form,
or I couldn't have been gone for so long, but I want to look over the
records of the office and make out my annual report."

"Why, certainly," responded Jepson, still speaking very clearly, and
assuming his most placating smile, "I'd be glad to have you check up.
With Mr. Jones away I've been so pressed by work I hardly know where we
are. Just make yourself at home and anything I can do for you, please
feel free to let me know."

She thanked him politely and then, as she ran through the files, she
absently removed her ear-'phone.

"Just hold out that report of the mining experts," she heard Jepson
remark to his clerk; and in an instant her suspicions were confirmed.
He had had experts at work, making a report on their property, but he
wished to withhold it