“The girl sailed from Philadelphia for Europe three weeks ago on the steamer ‘Excelsior,’ under the assumed name of Alice Montgomery, with Sara Conyers, the artist sister of the _Clarion’s_ sub-editor, Hugh Conyers. She was hidden away here in New York under the name of Romaine Garland, and old Endicott, Conyers and the sister have smuggled the girl quietly away from Lakemere. The two women are now at the ‘Hotel Royal Victoria’ at Lucerne, and Hugh Conyers and Endicott are watching every move that you make.” A ferocious gleam lit up the Senator’s eyes. He signed the check and passed it over to Vreeland. “I can handle both of them easily,” he growled. “Tell me the whole story now,” he said, leaning back with an air of exquisite delight. “My money will do the rest. I’ll get to her easy enough.” “You’ll have to work quickly then,” answered Vreeland, “for Elaine Willoughby has stolen away on an ostensible trip around the world via Japan, but really to meet the girl and her train. There was a private guard who went with the two women. My detective recognized him, and the bodyguard is a cool and dangerous man, too.” The Senator’s brow was blackened with a ferocious scowl. “Damnation, she is clever,” cried Garston. “I wanted the daughter in this country, for I can not quickly use foreign laws, and any open violence, of course, would be madness. Tell me the whole story. I must be at work at once. It is a serious matter; I must think it over.” It was midnight when the two men separated, after drinking a bottle of “Pommery” to the “ensuing happiness.” Garston’s eyes were at last gleaming with a triumphant joy. His quick wit suggested the way out. “You are to stay quietly on in the enemy’s camp. I will let her think herself unpursued. Her desire to hoodwink you is our only salvation; and now I will prepare Katharine for your visit. Shake hands! Here’s to your married happiness. You are getting a pearl of a woman—a woman fit to be a queen.” “I have made my fortune,” mused Vreeland, as he wandered back to the “Elmleaf.” “They are both of them in my power, Garston and Elaine. He shall never know that Elaine only found the girl by chance. I will play them off the one against the other.” But, in the silence of his room that night the wild words of Alida Hathorn came back to him. Her parting curse, “I leave it to the future to punish you!” “I don’t see where the game can break against me,” he reflected, “I hold four aces!” And so he slept reassured. He had read in the evening paper the announcement of the forthcoming engagement of the “well-known club man and millionaire, Mr. James Potter, to the charming widow of the late Frederick Hathorn.” “Newspaper enterprise!” sneered Vreeland. “Well, marriage seals her lips like many another sister who has wandered a few steps from the path. I am safe now.”