re what, Miss Pauline?"

"Don't you understand? Can't you see?"

"Not exactly, while you slant that letter above your head like a
reprieve for a doomed man."

"Well, read it." She leaned breathlessly over his shoulder as he read
the familiar lines.

"Miss Pauline, it is splendid!" he exclaimed. "I was always sure you
would be successful with your writing."

"Yes, you encouraged me to get new experiences, while Harry always
opposed me," she said. "But, oh, I wish Harry was here to see this."

"Shall you go to Philadelphia?" inquired Owen

"Indeed--shall and instantly."

"Is it so urgent as that."

"Of course. They might change their minds any moment and get some one
else to write the story. Will you see what train I can take this
evening, Owen, while I run and pack a few things?"

"With pleasure--but don't you think some one ought to accompany you?"

"To Philadelphia? Nonsense. It's just like crossing the street.
Please, Owen, don't you begin to worry about every little thing I do."

"Very well," he laughed. As soon as she was gone he selected a time
table, and scanned the train list. Then he took up the telephone and
called a number.

"Hello, Wrentz?"

"This is Owen. It worked. Be at the Pennsylvania station with your
men tonight. And, Wrentz, if the plan I gave you fails, I leave it to
you to invent a new one. You understand? What? No. I don't want any
return this time."

Before Owen had helped Pauline into her car and bidden her goodbye,
Wrentz and his men were on watch in the railroad station.

"Goodbye and good luck."

Pauline was standing in the aisle, the porter stowing her baggage into
her drawing room, when the men entered the car. She noted them with
curiosity. There was nothing very sinister about them, but they seemed
obviously out of place, but the next moment she had forgotten about
them, and for the twentieth time, was reading her own story in the
Cosmopolitan. For now, in the light of the magic it had wrought, she
was bent on studying every word--to absorb the power of her own
genius, so to speak--in order that "her publishers" should not be
disappointed in the forthcoming novel.

When Pauline got off the train at Philadelphia she did not notice that
one of the four men who had aroused her curiosity walked behind her as
she left, or that he was joined by the three others in the taxicab
which followed hers.

When she left the cab at one of the fashionable hotels