“I go now to Alynton. They shall know whom they trust with secrets that would shake a nation,” the passion-blinded man growled, forgetting that he had dropped to the mere bully. But the victorious woman laughed him to scorn. “I hold them, you and your masters, in the hollow of my hand,” the defiant woman said. “At bay, a true woman fears nothing. Your ruin and public shame await you. I will deal with them alone.” And so he had failed. When James Garston was gone, his mad thoughts goading him on to the final purchase of Vreeland as the seal of his revenge, the exhausted woman had sought her room. “I must telegraph for Judge Endicott,” she muttered. “This paper must be placed where neither murder nor millions can reach it.” She slowly examined the dangerous envelope, and then her stricken heart stopped beating as the blank paper fluttered down at her feet. Gone—when—where—how? A thousand times she had felt it there resting on a heart now thrilled with a loving hunger for the beautiful girl who was far away over the yeasty Atlantic surges, with the one woman whom she could trust in life and death, Sara Conyers. She had hardly felt the clasp of her daughter’s loving arms before fate sundered them. Fate and fear had parted them. Her mind was working with lightning rapidity as she awaited the stubborn French maid’s answer. In an instant she revolved the whole circle of her friends and foes. Who was the thief? Justine’s calm voice recalled her to the troubles of the moment. “I have never seen it since I sewed it in for you at the Arlington Hotel. Madame does not doubt me, I hope. Have any of the jewels in my custody been stolen or your money? When did Madame discover the loss?” Under the clairvoyance of suspicion, Elaine realized the unmistakable air of the _déclassée_, in the woman’s crafty face and the physical abandon of her tell-tale bearing. And yet, she felt that Justine was technically innocent. Secure in a nearness to her generous employer, Justine Duprez had lately given herself over to all the easy luxuries of a vicious life, and the unerring record was now written on her smug face. There was all the insolence of the woman’s vile nature shining in her velvety eyes—the servant ready to turn and rend her mistress. “Here is a possible enemy, a spy, the willing tool of others,” mused Elaine Willoughby, as she rose and coldly said, “The matter is merely an annoyance, not a loss. I however wish to be always able to trust those around me.” In her own mind she quickly recalled the last time when she had verified the existence of the document which bound up a financial secret of national importance. It was on the day before the dinner at which James Garston had come back into her life as a living legacy of a dead past. The existence of the paper had been verified then, in view of possible “business.” “When had it been stolen?” Her long illness flashed upon her. There were a hundred chances since then.