"About five o'clock to-day; we separated at the Gibsons'." "You stay here till I come back, and go on eating, Jim," I directed, and grabbing my hat I rushed for the door. "Stop, Ben! Don't you do a thing to-night," commanded Jim. "What can you do now? Don't you know you made a bad break the last time?" But I kept right on and sent one more message from the nearest messenger office. It was directed to Miss Tescheron at her home and read: "Don't recall those wedding invitations till you see me to-morrow. "BENJAMIN HOPKINS." There was just enough of the indefinite in that, I imagined, to suspend operations; it would be a straw for the woman to clutch. She would not risk the unpleasant notoriety of a wedding postponement, if there could be a chance that she had acted impulsively at least, and had been misled by circumstantial evidence she had ignored till there came into the case the other-woman element. I did not fear the wound in her heart, unless the gangrene of jealousy entered to prevent the successful issue of my hastily arranged plan. When I returned to the house, Jim was greatly disturbed. "Ben, you have rushed out and sent another message; I can see it in your face," he said. "What can you be thinking of? Why did you not wait till to-morrow and talk this thing over?" "You leave this matter to me," said I. "Yes--I did that before." "But you took a bath contrary to my advice." Tinkering middlemen and ferrets can squeeze through small holes. I determined to stop proceedings in Ninety-sixth Street, if such a thing were possible. It seemed nervy for me to interfere now, but it was a long shot and I determined to take it. What I would do to cement the break I really knew not, but trusted to luck. Jim did not yet know about the Browning woman and the interest he was supposed to have in her. I tapped him gently and so indirectly on the subject that I could see he knew nothing about her. The undertaker's card he had found in the hall and brought in and laid on the table, where I chanced to pick it up, little thinking I would take it as corroborative of anything that might be said against him. He declared he had not left the house that night. Smith's men had simply lied when they said he left with the undertaker. I had a plan for testing his statement, however. When he told me how I had driven the Tescheron family to Hoboken for six weeks, and hinted his suspicions gathered from Gabrielle that the old gentleman had been forced to settle with some official before returning, I was almost struck dumb. As he gave me the details of his wretched experience of that afternoon at the Gibsons', I became desperate. "Jim, if that wedding comes off next Wednesday, will you forgive me?" I asked. "It's impossible." "What--to forgive me?" "For me to ever achieve such happiness." From the depths of his despair, he looked at me entreatingly as he spoke. CHAPTER XXI