“We are both at sea, it appears,” was his disquieting thought, and again the remembrances of that slender family tree of his lovely wife annoyed him. It seemed to begin and end in the graves of the dead parents, who were only gruesome shadows. “I will go over this whole ugly matter with Garston at once, just as soon as I see him,” was Vreeland’s mental decision. “Katharine is either a child-wife of the Dora order, or else far deeper than the sea that we are skimming over now.” It came to him cogently that he had taken her “on trust” largely, and that a current of life’s mysterious undertow had swept him along into Senator Garston’s power. There was no going back, however. “It is too late to hesitate now,” he mused, as he uneasily gazed back toward America, well knowing that some giant game might be played in his absence. In the deal there would be no cards for him, however the luck might turn. And there remained but one golden gleam in the gray clouds. He had that paper with which to dominate Mrs. Willoughby. But, it was a dangerous weapon; it might prove a boomerang. “Justine Duprez stands between me and all harm. That was a master-stroke! And so I can cut into the game as I wish, on my return. The very first thing I shall do will be to get Katharine’s fortune out of Garston’s control. He shall face the music. And yet, I can afford no quarrel until that is all safe.” In the month which followed this vain attempt at probing the financial resources of the wife of his bosom, Mr. Harold Vreeland, at the Hotel Cecil, London, found the beautiful Katharine’s money-spending power to be something abnormal. There was a rapid exchange of letters and cable ciphers between Garston and the young broker spy, but the husband was never enlightened as to the nature of the frequent telegrams and letters passing between “Uncle James” and his ward. It vastly annoyed him—this continued private commerce of ideas. The questions of the husband were frankly enough met. “I have always been accustomed to do exactly as I pleased,” the lady remarked, with a bright, hard smile. Vreeland’s face hardened. “And now, that you are married?” demanded Vreeland, angrily. “I shall continue to do so, Harold,” his wife sweetly replied. “If you would have me lead a Darby and Joan life, please to remember that sort of thing went out with the ‘Rollo books’ and ‘Faith Gartney’s Girlhood!’” Mr. Harold Vreeland, the husband of a few weeks, soon realized that while he was doing the clubs and music halls of London, his resplendent wife had quietly gathered up quite a coterie of admiring American men, generally conversationally lumped as “the Western gang.” These ardent cavaliers seemed to be all wifeless, and, strangely enough too, without mothers or sisters. “‘Uncle James’ friends,” was Mrs. Vreeland’s saving clause, when at last her angered husband remonstrated at their increasing circle. He was beginning to be agnostic as to her guilelessness.