lo. It was a large but otherwise
unpretentious building, and gave employment to a vast number of
operatives, mostly female.

Some of these latter might have been surprised, and possibly a little
fluttered, one evening, at seeing a well-dressed young gentleman
standing at the gate as they came forth, gazing with languid interest
from one face to another, as if he were on the look-out for some one of
their number.

But they would have been yet more astonished could they have seen him
still lingering after the last one had passed, watching with unabated
patience the opening and shutting of the small side door devoted to the
use of the firm, and such employes as had seats in the office. It was
Mr. Byrd, and his purpose there at this time of day was to see and
review the whole rank and file of the young men employed in the place,
in the hope of being able to identify the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens by his
supposed resemblance to the person whose character of face and form had
been so minutely described to him.

For Mr. Byrd was a just man and a thoughtful one, and knowing this
identification to be the key-stone of his lately formed theory, desired
it to be complete and of no doubtful character. He accordingly held fast
to his position, watching and waiting, seemingly in vain, for the dark,
powerful face and the sturdily-built frame of the gentleman whose
likeness he had attempted to draw in conjunction with that of Miss Dare.
But, though he saw many men of all sorts and kinds issue from one door
or another of this vast building, not one of them struck him with that
sudden and unmistakable sense of familiarity which he had a right to
expect, and he was just beginning to doubt if the whole framework of his
elaborately-formed theory was not destined to fall into ruins, when the
small door, already alluded to, opened once more, and a couple of
gentlemen came out.

The appearance of one of them gave Mr. Byrd a start. He was young,
powerfully built, wore a large mustache, and had a complexion of unusual
swarthiness. There was character, too, in his face, though not so much
as Mr. Byrd had expected to see in the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens. Still,
people differ about degrees of expression, and to his informant this
face might have appeared strong. He was dressed in a business suit, and
was without an overcoat--two facts that made it difficult for Mr. Byrd
to get any assistance from the cut and color of his clothes.

But there was eno