preparing a peace offering to tender Gabrielle. He wanted
to know if he hadn't better wait on the corner while I went in and did
the talking.

"In where?" I asked, for I had given no particulars.

"Why, you are going up to Ninety-sixth Street, aren't you?"

"Not I," said I. "At least not yet. We are going beyond that, Jim; up to
Mount Vernon and beyond by trolley when we leave the elevated." I looked
him square in the eye, and I could see no quaking. If he was suspicious,
he knew how to dissemble. Could that be possible? I wondered, but only
for a second.

"What are you going there for, Ben?"

"Can't you imagine, Jim?" I asked, having that midnight journey in mind
that he might have taken with the man Collins, or his representatives,
the night I was at the hotel. But I could not understand how he could
have had time to make the trip.

"Never was up this way in my life," he answered, "and don't see where it
comes in now, hanged if I do."

"Well, it's a little notion of mine," I assured him. "I don't want to
proceed on this matter with Gabrielle until I have been to Mount Vernon
and two miles beyond. The air will do you good, and so I brought you for
that purpose."

I thought I would appear benevolent in his eyes, if I could not startle
him. To tell the truth, I did not expect to startle him. He could not
plot, and I was a knave, I thought then, ever to have doubted him. But I
must go on and give him the third degree, for common-sense compelled
caution.

"Ben, let's cut out Mount Vernon, get off and go up to Ninety-sixth
Street. I'll go in alone and see if Gabrielle will not meet me this
morning. I think she may, if you did not spoil everything by some crazy
message."

"Why, Miss Tescheron will be down-town by this time; it is after nine
o'clock."

"That's so. I don't suppose any one but her mother would be home." He
seemed perfectly satisfied to go with me after that.

It was a dismal ride across the little stretch of country, and when the
hack drew up in front of a tall, red building, I looked at my bouquet
and then at the driver, asking him if he understood me to call for a
brewery, the only object that seemed to lie before us. The man with the
reins thereupon directed us to make a detour of the building and its
fringe of beer garden, to a point where we would behold the spot we
sought. I took Jim's arm and helped him to struggle toward the place. An
old man in his shirt-sleeves was digging in a prospec