d, half to herself. Then with a last searching look,
"Have you not even a sweetheart?"

I must have reddened painfully, for she drew back with a hesitating
and troubled air; but the vigorous protest I hastened to make seemed to
reassure her, for the next word she uttered was one of confidence.

"I have lost a ring." She spoke in a low-but hurried tone. "It was
snatched from my finger as I reached out my hand to close my shutters.
Some one must have been lying in wait; some one who knows my habits
and the hour at which I close my window for the night. The loss I have
sustained is greater than you can conceive. It means more, much more,
than appears. To the man who will bring me back that ring direct from
the hand that stole it, I would devote the gratitude of a lifetime.
Are you willing to make the endeavor? It is a task I cannot give to the
police."

This request, so different from any I had expected, checked my
enthusiasm in proportion as it awoke a senseless jealousy.

"Yet it seems directly in their line," I suggested, seeing nothing
but humiliation before me if I attempted the recovery of a simple
love-token.

"I know that it must seem so to you," she admitted, reading my thoughts
and answering them with skilful indirectness. "But what policeman would
undertake a difficult and minute search for an article whose intrinsic
value would not reach five dollars?"

"Then it is only a memento," I stammered, with very evident feeling.

"Only a memento," she repeated; "but not of love. Worthless as it is in
itself, it would buy everything I possess, and almost my soul to-night.
I can explain no further. Will you attempt its recovery?"

Restored to myself by her frank admission that it was no lover's
keepsake I was urged to recapture and return, I allowed the powerful
individuality of this woman to have its full effect upon me. Taking in
with one glance her beauty, the impassioned fervor of her nature, and
the subtle charm of a spirit she now allowed to work its full spell upon
me, I threw every practical consideration to the winds, and impetuously
replied:

"I will endeavor to regain this ring for you. Tell me where to go, and
whom to attack, and if human wit and strength can compass it, you shall
have the jewel back before morn-ing.

"Oh!" she protested, "I see that you anticipate a task of small
difficulty. You cannot recover this particular ring so easily as that.
In the first place, I do not in the least know