“Tell her,” she cried, “I’ll be her first bridesmaid at the wedding. I’ll remember you to papa and Mr Dark!” and she went off jauntily with a laugh. Standing a minute in stupefaction, Gilead turned at last and, hailing a cab, drove to the office, and, finding it closed, went on to Miss Halifax’s flat. The young lady met him with a blush, and a deprecating look in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I’m so sorry, Mr Balm. Has she been arrested? But I see by your face that she has. Please forgive me.” “For what?” he asked. “I could not believe in her,” she said, lowering her lids; “I simply could not. The strange similarity of her story to others--I seemed to recognize the breed, and--and I simply could not. The moment you were gone, I went to visit Chief Superintendent Ingram at Scotland Yard--he’s a great friend of mine, you know--and I asked him to let me see the photographs of people wanted, and she was amongst them. I could not be mistaken--her name is Topsy London, and she was suspected of being mixed up in this affair. All her story about the wreck must have been quite true; but nothing else was. Anyhow they thought it worth their while to be at the station, and I see that it was. It was the Inspector’s opinion, and I believe him right, that she had heard of the Agency, and had put the advertisement into the _Daily Post_ with the express intention of drawing you.” A smile flickered on Gilead’s lips. “The bait!” he murmured. She flushed, and answered in a curiously distressed voice:-- “Don’t--please don’t! But don’t you think it likely? And the principals, the actual burglars, did not of course, dare, to appear in the matter. Tell me you aren’t offended with me.” Gilead caught at the warm young hand drooped limp before him. “Offended!” he said kindly. “It is you who put my judgments to shame. I will never again trust myself away from your apron-strings; I--” He checked himself suddenly, sighed, and added: “but that’s nonsense. I must learn some time to walk alone.” CHAPTER IX. THE QUEST OF THE REGISTERED PARCEL The typical Agony Column of the _Daily Post_ was built up in courses which varied in little but their diurnal degree of thickness. Starting from a plinth, say, of Dancing and Gymnastics, it would rise by successive stages, through Cast-off Clothes, Skin-beautifiers and Superfluous-hair Removers, Patent-medicines and Special-cure Treatments, Detective Agencies, Paying-Guest and Social Introduction offers, to Personal Appeals, whence soaring through Club-fixtures and Lost Property advertisements, it would flower at length into a capital of the true ‘agonizings,’ crowned sometimes, at irregular intervals, by an apocalyptic warning to the worldly and thoughtless to set their houses in order.