“And, Justine is a virtual prisoner. If she were to tell all!” He stopped short, for his heart bounded in agony. “I must remove that document,” he muttered. “For, even she may become an enemy.” He had always distrusted all men and his marital experience led him now to distrust all women—even Justine. As he dashed down the road to the railway station, Vreeland noted an athletic lad easily following the springing horses, mounted on a racing bicycle. The fact that the same lad sauntered into the smoking-room of the car, and patiently dallied with a cigarette, never intimated to the unconsciously shadowed man that the schoolboy follower was tracing out his every movement. But, officer Dan Daly smiled victoriously next day when he heard Mary Kelly’s brother tell of Vreeland’s brief tryst with Justine, and his long interview with Doctor Alberg in South Fifth Avenue. “I’ll get him yet, in the very act,” he cheerfully prophesied, “with that stolen paper in his hand.” “The trap is nearly ready to spring,” complacently reflected the Roundsman, as he ordered a night and day watch at the peep-hole which controlled the interior of Justine Duprez’s rooms. “I have sworn not to marry Mary Kelly till I’ve put the ornaments on that rascal.” He glanced lovingly at a pair of spring-steel handcuffs of his own especial selection. His fancy jewelry! The days gliding along rapidly as Harold Vreeland dropped into his old groove of the “automatic business relations” in Wall Street found him still the victim of adverse currents, and wavering in the blasts of contrary-blowing winds. He made no headway toward a solid footing. Socially, the return of the Vreelands was an event of moment, and the tide of unrestrained gaiety rose high around the now frankly defiant wife. There were soon those gay cavaliers, Merriman, Wiltshire and Rutherstone, in attendance, “the Three Guardsmen” of the defiant young Western queen. And the ever amiable Mrs. Volney McMorris and a flock of semi-detached women of the younger married set gathered to the feast. “There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,” and the brilliant young matron was soon classed as a “Madame Benoiton,” _jamais chez elle_! And Vreeland soon followed her example, living also in the open. In the hotel corridors of the Savoy, the curious shaven servitors often listened to the sounds of vigorous marital debate, wherein the low growl of Vreeland followed the strident soprano of Mrs. Katharine. For, “Uncle James” had not yet been brought to book! And the young husband was brutally sullen. There had been several bitter exchanges of hidden menaces between the two men at the Hotel Plaza. “I am fighting the fight of my life, Vreeland, now, over some great Western properties,” gruffly answered Senator Garston. “I’ve no time now to go into Katharine’s affairs. Ask her; she will tell you that all is right. “And I am, besides, carrying on a half-arm, in-fighting duel with that devil of a woman.