Some indefinable impulse led him to his rooms, where the grave Bagley handed him a telegraphic dispatch. He tore it open and read the bitter lines: “You have lied and basely betrayed me. I have left America forever. I leave it to the future to punish you.” The signature, “Red Rose,” was that of a woman who was sobbing alone in her stateroom on the Etruria, as she glided past the Narrows on this sunny Saturday morning. With a clouded brow, Vreeland descended the stair and at the street door, met Mr. Jimmy Potter, who whispered: “Fred Hathorn has cleared out to Havana—last night—the fool. He gouged his wife out of half a million. “I saw her off on the Etruria to-day, and I’m going to save what I can for her out of the wreck, and, then go over and meet her in Paris. “I told you that all things would come round to the man who waits.” With a smothered oath, Vreeland pushed on, glad to escape the easy-going tormentor who was destined to be the _prochain ami_ of the daring Lady of the Red Rose. He dashed away to Miss Marble’s “Bureau,” where his eyes gleamed as Miss Joanna led him into her private room. Her warning glance gave him the key to his conduct. And he was speechless in silent rapture, as he gazed upon the fresh and womanly beauty of “Miss Romaine Garland, stenographer.” “She is the very woman,” he mused. “The woman of my dreams.” Afar, uptown, in the shaded boudoir of her pleasaunce palace, Elaine Willoughby dropped the newspaper from her hands. “I am safe at last. He is a criminal fugitive. “And, now, to plead to God for the return of my child.” CHAPTER IX. SENATOR ALYNTON’S COLLEAGUE. An exciting month had slipped away after the sudden Sugar flurry in Wall Street which had filled its gray granite channels with lame and dead ducks. Seated in his cozy morning room at the “Elmleaf,” Mr. Harold Vreeland was reflectively watching the snowflakes whirled by a March storm in fluffy white eddies, and furtively gazing askance upon the beautiful face of Romaine Garland at his side. “Where have I seen that face before?” he mused, as the lovely stenographer arose with a silent bow, and passed through the half-open door to seat herself at her typewriting table, _en vis-à-vis_ with Mary Kelly nodding over her clicking telegraph instrument. There was ample time for Vreeland to attend to his growing personal correspondence in these long mornings when he awaited the next secret orders of his patroness. But, a singular social and speculative lethargy now seemed to have seized upon Mrs. Elaine Willoughby. The nearness of Lent, the reaction of the giddy winter social season, and the cares of a large property all contributed to keep the woman who had fought Alida Hathorn to a finish, out of the garish glare of show society.