hut the door. Winifred was left outside in the
darkness.

She returned to her bed, but not to sleep. It was certain that her aunt
had lied to her--there was more in the air than Winifred's quick wits
could fathom. The fact of Rachel Craik's release did not clear up the
mystery of the fact that she had been arrested. Winifred lay, spurring
her fancy to account for all that puzzled her; and underlying her
thoughts was the man's face and those strange words which she had heard
somewhere on the borders of sleep.

She fancied she had seen the man somewhere before. At last she recalled
the occasion, and almost laughed at the conceit. It was a picture of
Sitting Bull, and that eminent warrior had long since gone to the happy
hunting-grounds.

Meantime, the murmur of voices in the back room had recommenced and was
going on. Then, towards morning, Winifred became aware that the murmur
had stopped, and soon afterward she heard the click of the lock of the
front door and a foot going down the front steps.

Rising quickly, she crept to the window and looked out. Going from the
door down the utterly empty street she saw a man, a big swaggerer, with
something of the over-seas and the adventurer in his air. It was Ralph
"Voles," the "brother" of Senator William Meiklejohn. But Winifred could
not distinguish his features, or she might have recognized the man she
had seen in her half-dreams, and who had said: "She must be taken out of
New York--she is the image of her mother."

Voles had hardly quitted the place before a street-car conductor, who
had taken temporary lodgings the previous evening in a house opposite,
hurried out into the coldness of the hour before dawn. He seemed pleased
at the necessity of going to work thus early.

"Oh, boy!" he said softly. "I'm glad there's somethin' doin' at last. I
was getting that sleepy. I could hardly keep me eyes open!"

When Detective Clancy came to the Bureau a few hours later he found a
memorandum to the effect that a Mr. Ralph V. Voles, of Chicago, stopping
at a high-grade hotel in Fifth Avenue, had dined with Rachel Craik in a
quiet restaurant, had parted from her, and met her again, evidently by
appointment. The two had entered the house in One Hundred and Twelfth
Street separately shortly before midnight, and Voles returned to his
hotel at four o'clock in the morning.

Clancy shook his head waggishly.

"Who'd have thought it of you, Rachel?" he cackled. "And, now that I've
se