“Let me know their probable amount,” gruffly answered the husband, as he departed for the steamer office. He was beginning to feel a master hand now. “She had the news before I received it,” he growled. “And I swear I will make it my pleasing duty to bring ‘Uncle James’ to book, on my return. I will get her property into my hands, and control it. “She would beggar even a Vanderbilt, an Astor or a Goelet, if given a free hand.” Vreeland aspired to the conquest of this defiant beauty in rebellion. It so happened that the game as laid out by “Uncle James” suited all three; but, while he thirsted to see Justine Duprez once more and to confer with Doctor Alberg, Vreeland was really anxious at heart to re-enter the comparative protection of his Wall Street office. “By Jove! I am at least between the lines there,” he mused. “I can frighten both sides, and so, guard myself.” It was on the Gascogne that he watched Katharine VanDyke Norreys as the Count de Millefleurs (a young attaché going over on his first appointment) bent over her steamer chair. “This marriage has only hung a millstone around my neck,” he resentfully brooded. “And I wonder if I was only brought in to relieve ‘Uncle James.’” It was a mean suspicion, but it clung closely to him. He was now the prey of ugly thoughts, and fleeting fears disturbed “the sleep of Richard.” There were times when he feared for the safety of the document so deftly hidden away. The copy had been artfully deposited (under receipt) in a Belgian branch bank in Paris, under an assumed name, and the banker’s receipt was now sewed in his waistcoat. “Thank God! That is all safe!” he sighed. He little reflected that one day, laughing over the “Agony Column” of the London _Times_, his eye had paused at the name “Martha Wilmot.” Some trace of familiarity, some fleeting memory caused him to read the few lines. “Handsome reward and the most complete immunity guaranteed. Greatly to your advantage. Communicate in any way.” The signature, “New York,” followed by an address, closed the expensively placed announcement. “Some relic of man’s folly and woman’s frailty!” he laughed. “The old, old game goes on forever.” And yet, he little dreamed that Hugh Conyers and handsome Dan Daly were now the right and left hand men of Judge Hiram Endicott, who was engaged in some very interesting metropolitan researches. In far-away New York, there was the veiled duel of two fearless intellects going on, even in the summer days, when the town was empty. Mrs. Elaine Willoughby was again the radiant mistress of Lakemere, although she spent a portion of her time in town at the Circassia. There was now a strange glow of happiness shining on the splendid woman’s face, and the services of Doctor Hugo Alberg were permanently discontinued.