their return
with what calmness he could muster, for he saw little or no use in taking
any definite steps in the matter.

For a time he remained sunk in a listless dejection, sitting among the
ashes of his hopes, his dreams of vast wealth gone, his shining Spanish
castles in ruins about him. But again his dulled brain began to work. How
did Ydo secure the photographs, if indeed it were she who had secured
them? She had come late, laid aside her wraps in the dressing-room, and
had entered the drawing-room followed by her secretary. From the moment
of her first appearance he remembered practically every motion she had
made. She had not moved about at all during her brief stay and had
certainly not been anywhere near the table which had held the
photographs, but had seated herself and gone through her tricks on the
opposite side of the room.

Now as to the secretary. Well, she on her part had not moved from the
piano-stool. He could see her, too, enter the room and leave it. The
whole mental picture of the group was portrayed before him. As he
distinctly remembered, the person who stood nearest the table while
Mademoiselle Mariposa drew aside the veil of the future, was Edith
Symmes, who sat almost directly before it. To the left of her was Marcia,
pale and sad, and close beside her Horace Penfield. Heavens! He jumped
impatiently to his feet. He was simply getting into a morbid muddle
sitting here brooding over this matter. He must have action, action of
some kind, and obeying a sudden impulse, he decided to see Ydo at once.

Wasting no time in reflection, he telephoned to her apartment, and
impressed upon the surprised and reluctant maid that no matter who was
there, or what the appointments for the day might be, he must see her
mistress within the half-hour on business of the most imperative nature.

His rapid and excited speech must have impressed the young woman with the
urgency of the case, for she presently returned to the telephone with the
message that if he would call within the next twenty minutes Mademoiselle
Mariposa would see him.

It is needless to say that Hayden lost no time in getting to the
Mariposa's apartment-house, but reached it as fast as a chauffeur could
be induced to make the run thither, and was, after a very brief delay,
admitted to Ydo's library. She was sitting there alone, looking over a
newspaper, and as he came through the door she sprang up smilingly and
expectantly to meet him. Then