ong the many first-class passengers seemed to have some
welcoming friend to greet him on shore save only myself. I would not let
myself acknowledge that I felt discouragement, but a certain gloomy
sense of the hopelessness of my undertaking would obtrude itself, as I
rattled over the badly-paved streets of New York in the chill seclusion
of my cab.

I had myself driven straight to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which was
becoming almost an old-fashioned hostelry now among its many tall new
rivals of incredibly many storeys in height, and walking up to the
"office" prepared my most affable manner, to win the confidence of the
smart "clerk" or book-keeper.

"Good-day," I began agreeably, wishing that in former visits to New York
I had stopped at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, so that now, for my quest's
sake, I should be accorded the welcome of an old friend.

"Good-day," was the brisk reply. "You want a room?"

"I should like first to enquire if Mr. Harvey Farnham, of Denver,
Colorado, is stopping here," I said. "My principal object in choosing
this hotel was to meet him, but if----"

"Gone three days ago," broke in the gentleman with the waxed moustache,
who evidently did not wish to waste time on a traveller more inclined to
parley than to patronise the house.

This was the first setback I had experienced on American shores, but so
many had been my portion on the other side of the Atlantic that I had
had time to grow accustomed to them. I had prepared my mind for as
numerous rebuffs here, yet in spite of that I felt the bitterness of
disappointment settling bleakly down upon me. Already I had been given a
sign that Wildred's cleverness had projected itself across the width of
ocean.

"Ah, indeed, I'm sorry to hear that he has left. Is he with friends in
town, or has he gone to Denver?" I questioned, with as bland an air as I
could well command.

"Can't tell you whether he's gone to Denver, I'm sure, sir. But I think
it's almost certain he's not in town, and somehow or other I've got the
impression that he mentioned he was going west."

"I suppose his health improved more rapidly than he expected, then," I
went on. "I understood before crossing that his accident on shipboard
had laid him up for awhile, and that it would be some time before he
felt fit to undertake the journey home."

"He did seem rather seedy," vouchsafed the clerk. "But he was pretty
well able to take care of himself. Shall I put you down for a room?"