ed at that, but the next moment she was
sitting forward, tense and questioning again.

"If that is true, Mrs. Pitman," she said, "who was the veiled woman
he met that Monday morning at daylight, and took across the bridge to
Pittsburgh? I believe it was Jennie Brice. If it was not, who was it?"

"I don't believe he took any woman across the bridge at that hour. Who
says he did?"

"Uncle Jim saw him. He had been playing cards all night at one of the
clubs, and was walking home. He says he met Mr. Howell face to face,
and spoke to him. The woman was tall and veiled. Uncle Jim sent for
him, a day or two later, and he refused to explain. Then they forbade
him the house. Mama objected to him, anyhow, and he only came on
sufferance. He is a college man of good family, but without any money
at all save what he earns.. And now--"

I had had some young newspaper men with me, and I knew what they got.
They were nice boys, but they made fifteen dollars a week. I'm
afraid I smiled a little as I looked around the room, with its gray
grass-cloth walls, its toilet-table spread with ivory and gold, and
the maid in attendance in her black dress and white apron, collar and
cuffs. Even the little nightgown Lida was wearing would have taken a
week's salary or more. She saw my smile.

"It was to be his chance," she said. "If he made good, he was to have
something better. My Uncle Jim owns the paper, and he promised me to
help him. But--"

So Jim was running a newspaper! That was a curious career for Jim to
choose. Jim, who was twice expelled from school, and who could never
write a letter without a dictionary beside him! I had a pang when I
heard his name again, after all the years. For I had written to Jim
from Oklahoma, after Mr. Pitman died, asking for money to bury him,
and had never even had a reply.

"And you haven't seen him since?"

"Once. I--didn't hear from him, and I called him up. We--we met in the
park. He said everything was all right, but he couldn't tell me just
then. The next day he resigned from the paper and went away. Mrs.
Pitman, it's driving me crazy! For they have found a body, and they
think it is hers. If it is, and he was with her--"

"Don't be a foolish girl," I protested. "If he was with Jennie Brice,
she is still living, and if he was _not_ with Jennie Brice--"

"If it was _not_ Jennie Brice, then I have a right to know who it
was," she declared. "He was not like himself when I met him. He said
such