“Nonsense,” calmly replied the Senator-elect. “You will be left out in the street in three months if you let the cold-hearted Alynton dominate that woman’s changing mind. He wishes to marry her _himself_. I say that he shall not! Now, you see, our game is the same. He has already enough power to displace you—for reasons entirely beyond your control.” The words “Sugar syndicate” leaped to Vreeland’s pale lips, but he mastered himself. “Tell me the truth. Give me the whole game. Show me where you can secure me—and then I am your man. But I will not be paid off with fairy tales.” James Garston laughed easily. “I am a good paymaster, and I’ve already learned my cue. Nothing for nothing in New York. I would never dare to trifle with a wideawake man like you,” and then Vreeland bowed and smiled. “Then, what must I do for you?” demanded Vreeland, who was now thoroughly off his guard. The Senator studied his man carefully. “I think that I’ll trust you,” he slowly said. Standing before his would-be dupe he said, carelessly. “I had supposed that you knew that Mrs. Willoughby was still bound in a marriage which would make all your season’s work ‘love’s labor lost.’” The secret was out at last! Vreeland’s eyes were downcast. He tried to guard his tell-tale face. “And has a daughter now old enough to be a more fitting wife to you than even that Indian-summer beauty—the mother,” remorselessly continued the Senator, as Vreeland sprang to his feet in a torment. “Now, I want you to find that daughter for me—and if you do, your fortune is made.” He quietly added: “You see the presence of that girl would spoil the Alynton marriage, and Elaine Willoughby has only a heart of stone. She has merely drawn Alynton on by an assumed resistance. My lady has played her cards well. I want to find the girl—and break off that match—for business reasons.” The flood of burning jealousy which swept over Vreeland’s mind now washed away the last vestige of his calculating prudence. Alynton should never have the Lady of Lakemere. For a moment a torturing, haunting resemblance was strangely made plain to him. And now he would hunt down that lost lamb which had escaped both himself and that thirsty she-wolf, Joanna Marble. There was a double motive for the chase now. “Is that the girl whom you are searching for?” suddenly exclaimed the excited broker, as he thrust Romaine Garland’s picture before the gaze of the astonished Western millionaire. There was a cry—an echo of the buried past surging now from Garston’s breast. The echo of a love long dead. “By God! It is Margaret herself—at eighteen. Tell me—tell me—where did you get this?” He had seized Vreeland by both hands and the picture lay between them, smiling up at the excited men from the wine-stained table.