t at shadows."

Winifred was silent. After a time she asked:

"Have you seen Mr. Steingall or Mr. Clancy lately?"

"Yes, a couple of days ago. We are always more or less in communication.
But I have nothing to report. They're keeping track of Voles and Mick
the Wolf, but those are birds who don't like salt on their tails. You
know already that the Bureau never ceases to work at the mystery of your
relation with your impossible 'aunt,' and I think they have information
which they have not passed on to me."

"Is my aunty still searching for me, I wonder?" asked Winifred.

"Oh, don't call her aunty--call her your antipodes! It is more than that
woman knows how to be your aunt. Of course, the whole crew of them are
moving heaven and earth to find you! Clancy knows it. But let them
try--they won't succeed. And even if they do, please don't forget that
I'm here now!"

"But why should they be so terribly anxious to find me? My aunty always
treated me fairly well, but in a cold sort of a way which did not betray
much love. So love can't be their motive."

"Love!" And Carshaw breathed the word softly, as though it were pleasing
to his ear. "No. They have some deep reason, but what that is is more
than any one guesses. The same reason made them wish to take you far
from New York, though what it all means is not very clear. Time,
perhaps, will show."

The same night Rex Carshaw sat among a set which he had not frequented
much of late--in Mrs. Tower's drawing-room. There were several tables
surrounded with people of various American and foreign types playing
bridge. The whole atmosphere was that of Mammon; one might have fancied
oneself in the halls of a Florentine money-changer. At the same table
with Carshaw were Mrs. Tower, another society dame, and Senator
Meiklejohn, who ought to have been making laws at Washington.

Tower stood looking on, the most unimportant person present, and anon
ran to do some bidding of his wife's. Carshaw's only relation with Helen
Tower of late had been to allow himself to be cheated by her at bridge,
for she did not often pay, especially if she lost to one who had been
something more than a friend. When he did present himself at her house,
she felt a certain gladness apart from the money which he would lose;
women ever keep some fragment of the heart which the world is not
permitted to scar and harden wholly.

She grew pensive, therefore, when he told her that he wished to place a
girl o