"I may have to go out of town to-night, Ryan. I'm not sure. Something has come up. If I'm not in to-morrow, could you--would you mind just staying here all day and looking after things? I may need you. Of course you'll lock up and leave the card out when you go to lunch." "Very well, sir." "I'll keep in touch with you in case I'm delayed," and Reyburn was off again. When the elevator had clanked down to the next floor Jimmie went to the window and looked dreamily out over the roofs of the city: "Aw!" he breathed joyously. "Now I'll bet he's going to do something about that reward!" Reyburn hurried down the street to the office of an old friend where he had a bit of business as an excuse, and asked a few casual questions when he was done. Then he went on to a telephone booth and called up a friend of his mother's, with whom he had a brief gossip, ostensibly to give a message from his mother, contained in her last letter to him. None of the questions that he asked were noticeable. He merely led the conversation into certain grooves. The lady was an old resident and well known in the higher social circles. She knew all there was to know about everybody and she loved to tell it. She never dreamed that he had any motive in leading her on. He dropped into a bank and asked a few questions, called up an address they gave him and made another inquiry, then dropped around to his cousin's home for a few minutes, where he allowed her to tell all she knew about the Stanhope wedding they had attended together, and the different theories concerning the escaped bride. Quite casually he asked if she knew whether the bride had property of her own, if so who were her guardians. His cousin thought she knew a lot, but, sifting it down, he discovered that it was nearly all hearsay or surmise. When he reached Jane Carson's boarding house he found that young woman ensconced in a tiny room, nine by twelve, a faded ingrain carpet on the floor, a depressed looking bed lounge against the bleary wall-paper, beneath crayon portraits of the landlady's dead husband and sons. There was a rocking-chair, a trunk, a cane-seat chair, and an oil stove turned up to smoking point in honor of the caller, but there was little room left for the caller. On the top of the trunk reposed a large pasteboard box securely tied. Jane, after a shy greeting, untied the strings and opened the cover, having first carefully slipped the bolt of the door. "You can't be too careful," she said. "You never can tell." Reyburn stood beside her and looked in a kind of awe at the glistening white, recognized the thick texture of the satin, the rare quality of the rose-point lace with which it was adorned, caught the faint fragrance of faded orange blossoms wafting from the filmy mist of the veil as Jane lifted it tenderly; then leaned over and touched a finger to the pile of whiteness, reverently, as though he were paying a tribute at a lovely shrine.