How long I sat by the desk waiting, thinking, planning, I know not. One scheme of action after another I had considered and rejected, when a sound broke on my listening ears. I started up in feverish anxiety. It was from the room beyond, and I stole toward the door to learn what it might mean. Again it came, but, strain as I might, I could not determine its cause. What could be going on in the locked office? If two men were there was it a personal encounter? If one man, was he doing violence upon himself? Was the heart of the mystery to be found behind those doors if I had the courage to throw them open? Burning with impatience, I thrust aside the fears of the evil that might follow hasty action. I had drawn the key and raised it once more to the slot, when I heard a step in the middle room. I had but time to retreat to my desk when a key was fitted in the lock, the door was flung open, and Doddridge Knapp stepped calmly into the room. “Ah, Wilton,” said the King of the Street affably. “I was wondering if I should find you here.” There was no trace of surprise or agitation in the face before me. If this was the man whose prayers and groans and sobs had come to me through the locked door, if he had wrestled with his conscience or even had been the accusing conscience of another, his face was a mask that showed no trace of the agony of thoughts that might contort the spirit beneath it. “I was attending to a little work of my own,” I answered, after greeting. If I felt much like a disconcerted pickpocket I was careful to conceal the circumstance, and spoke with easy indifference. “You have come back before I expected you,” I continued carelessly. “Yes,” said the King of the Street with equal carelessness. “Some family affairs called me home sooner than I had thought to come.” I had an inward start. Mrs. Knapp's troubled look, Mrs. Bowser's confusion, and the few words that had passed, returned to me. What was the connection between them? “Mrs. Knapp is not ill, I trust?” I ventured. “Oh, no.” “Nor Miss Knapp?” “Oh, all are well at the house, but sometimes you know women-folks get nervous.” Was it possible that Mrs. Knapp had sent for her husband? What other meaning could I put on these words? But before I could pursue my investigations further along this line, the wolf came to the surface, and he waved the subject aside with a growl. “But this is nothing to you. What you want to know is that I won't need you before Wednesday, if then.” “Does the campaign reopen?” I asked. “If you don't mind, Wilton,” said the Wolf with another growl, “I'll keep my plans till I'm ready to use them.” “Certainly,” I retorted. “But maybe you would feel a little interest to know that Rosenheim and Bashford have gathered in about a thousand shares of Omega in the last four or five days.” Doddridge Knapp gave me a keen glance. “There were no sales of above a hundred shares,” he said. “No--most of them ran from ten to fifty shares.”