to her gratitude.

"Rose, if some one you knew well--some one who had been the kindest of
friends, and who had lent you a hand when you needed it most--were in
danger, and I needed your help to protect--that person--would you tell
me?"

Their eyes met; she looked away, and then, as she met his gaze again,
her lips parted and the color deepened in her face.

"You don't mean--" she began.

"I mean that this is to help me protect a dear friend of yours and of
mine. I shouldn't have told you this if it hadn't been necessary. It's
as hard for me as it is for you, Rose. There's a great deal at stake.
Innocent people will suffer if I'm unable to manage this with full
knowledge of all the facts. You think back, six years ago last spring,
and tell me whether you have any knowledge, no matter how indefinite, as
to where that letter was written."

"You say," she began haltingly, "there's a friend of mine that I could
help if I knew anything about your letter? You'll have to tell me who it
is."

"I'd rather not do that; I'd rather not mention any names, not even to
you."

She was drying her eyes with her handkerchief. Her brows knit, she bent
her head for an instant, and then stared at him in bewilderment and
unbelief, and her lips trembled.

"You don't mean my friend--my beautiful one!--not the one who picked me
up out of the dirt--" She choked and her slender frame shook--and then
she smiled wanly and ended with the tears coursing down her cheeks. "My
beautiful one, who took me home again and kissed me--she kissed me
here!" She touched her forehead as though the act were part of some
ritual, then covered her eyes.

"You don't mean"--she cried out suddenly,--"you don't mean it's that!"

"No; it's not that; far from _that_," replied Dan sadly, knowing what
was in her mind.

He went out and closed the door upon her. He called Mrs. Owen on the
telephone and told her he would be up immediately. Then he went back to
Rose.

"It was like this, Mr. Harwood," said the girl, quite composed again. "I
knew him--pretty well--you know the man I mean. After that
Transportation Committee work I guess he thought he had to keep his hand
on me. He's like that, you know. If he thinks anybody knows anything on
him he watches them and keeps a tight grip on them, all right. You know
that about him?"

Dan nodded. He saw how the web of circumstance had enmeshed him from the
beginning. All the incidents of that chance visit to Fraserville