“She is of the finer clay,” warningly remarked Miss Joanna. “One toss of that proud head and she would be off like a startled fawn. You must trust to a woman—only a woman—to lead a woman on. Beware of rashness. You would lose her.” There was an _innocuous desuetude_ now clinging to all Vreeland’s crippled plans. For, soberly attentive in his duty calls, he had left daily cards at the Circassia, supplemented with flowers whose dreaming beauty might have touched a heart less wrung than Elaine’s. Admitted but once to her presence, he marveled at the serious change in her appearance. After receiving her orders, he now knew that he was free for a month to follow on his social pleasures and to watch, down in Wall Street, the executive matters of the firm and note the gradual liquidation, dollar for dollar, of all proved claims against the defunct firm of Hathorn & Wolfe. He recognized the cool-headed sifting of Mr. James Potter’s lawyers, under the mandates of that young Crœsus in Paris. “A fair, square settlement, dollar for dollar,” was Potter’s openly avowed business plan. The last flurries of the sudden Sugar speculations had all died away, and Vreeland at last believed Mrs. Willoughby’s description of the market. “There is nothing in sight. I shall let all speculation alone until Dr. Alberg pronounces me able to stand business excitement. Your time is your own till I call you back to your post and send Miss Kelly down to her work again. She will act as my private secretary until I am thoroughly well.” And Vreeland, now fearful that he might be as suddenly dropped as Frederick Hathorn had been, forbore to press on the confidence of the woman whose thinned cheeks and hollow eyes told of some internal fires eating away her vitality. He was unable to extract any information of value from Dr. Hugo Alberg. And the thieving nurse was now safe over the sea—the robbery of the envelope still undiscovered. The German medical worthy was really puzzled. In the secrecy of Vreeland’s rooms he confided that though all the depression of the skillfully administered overdoses of chloral had worn away, his patient was wearing herself to the verge of a collapse. “Mental trouble! mental trouble!” he growled. “Neither Justine nor my new nurse (whom I dare not fully trust) can gain the slightest clew to her sorrows. The Madame has grown cat-like, too, in her secretive ways. There is old Endicott always hovering around, and that newspaper fellow, Hugh Conyers; and, besides, his raw-boned artist sister, Miss Sara, is closeted with her nearly every evening. What they are all up to is a devil’s wonder. “Are they plucking her of her gold? There is such a thing as social blackmail. Any lonely woman of fortune usually has a ring of hungry sycophants around her.” The German groaned helplessly. He wanted that same gold, and wanted it badly.