sobbed.

"Well, whatever's taken her, get that trunk out of here!" the Dalton
butler snapped.

Was there anything else to do? Wilkins, having thought until his head
ached, could not see it. If the girl had a friend among the help, it
might be left with the friend; but the only woman of the household
present had taken pains to look properly scandalized at each mention of
Felice. Or if Mary hadn't cautioned him particularly against this Bates,
he would have risked taking Bates aside and communicating the astounding
truth.

But since things were as they were, and not as they might have been;
since Bates was actually glaring at him now, and would, in another
minute, be banging the trunk back to the street himself, there was
really nothing left for Wilkins but to grip the wide handle and start
slowly for the door again.

It was bad! Oh, it was very bad, with Mary in there and very likely
stifling to death, but Wilkins shuffled slowly back to the taxicab with
his burden, slowly and carefully put it aboard once more.

"What's wrong?" asked the driver.

"The party it was for had left!" said Wilkins.

"Where to?"

Wilkins pondered heavily.

"Back again where we came from," he sighed. "But you might go rather
slow, I think. Like enough I'll change my mind and decide to take it
somewhere else. I can't say at the moment."

Clambering after himself, he looked about while the man hopped out and
cranked his motor. Failure had leaped out and blasted the flower of
success, just as every petal had opened wide! Utter failure was the
portion of Wilkins--and the policeman on the far corner was watching him
in the most disconcerting way.

Squinting over there in the sunshine, the blue-coat's instinct was
telling him that there was something wrong about the trunk. He moved to
the other side of the lamp-post and stared on; and Just here his
sergeant appeared from the side street and the officer addressed him,
even pointing with his club at the taxi!

Faithful Wilkins's heart stopped! When an officer approaches and asks
one to open a trunk or bag, one opens it or goes up. Having opened this
one, it was almost a certainty that one would go up also--and with that
one would go Mary Dalton, and in the evening papers one of the most
startling stories of the year would be featured.

We all of us have a peculiar way of seeing our own side of any given
case before examining the others; so it was with Wilkins. Wilkins saw
himself dis