"My son Dick has wired me to address him at the Hotel where you and Alice are staying. I am worried about the boy and want you to do me a favor. He has always been a great trouble to me, as you know, but he is all I have, and I am fool enough to love him. Will you have a talk with him, and tell him for me that he has come to the end of his rope. He has a wife whom I am willing to buy off on one condition. He is to return to New York at once and go to work, and he is to convince you, as my agent, that from now on he gives up, absolutely and forever, any connection or acquaintance with a girl by the name of Lola Barnhelm, with whom he has been travelling for the last six weeks. Tell him that my information as to this young woman is complete. I have had them followed, and am in receipt of a daily report as to their movements. The efforts he has been making to secure a speedy divorce seem to point to an intention on his part to marry this person. If he does, please make it plain to him that he will support her himself, without help from me. Try to make him understand that I am not quite the fool he thinks me. I don't like what I have heard about this Barnhelm girl, and I am serious when I say that if he marries her he will not support her on the money I have earned by hard work. You may be able to make him see his real position. Thank you in advance, old friend, for the help I know you will not refuse me. Give my love to your daughter. What a happy man I would be if my boy had brains enough to love a girl like her, and character enough to be worthy of her love. "Yours always, "RICHARD FENWAY." Lola finished the letter and, folding it carefully, handed it back to him. "Well?" she inquired calmly. "I--I thought," he answered, very much embarrassed, "that you would want to know how you stood." "Yes, I am very much obliged, but I am afraid I don't. Are you acting now as Mr. Fenway's agent, or as my friend?" "As your friend," he replied earnestly. "Do you believe the insinuations this man has dared to make? That I am not a proper wife for his son?" "Well, I--I--only want you to know that if you marry the boy, his father will not give him another dollar." "Do you believe what he believes of me?" "I think that you are too pretty to----" "Do you believe these things?" "What were you doing out of the hotel until three o'clock this morning?" "I--I----" "I could not sleep, because I was thinking of you! I was at my window, and I saw you when you returned, and I saw the young fellow who left you at the steps." "Oh!" She looked at him for a moment; then a slow smile formed itself on her lips. "Then you, I suppose, do not care to count yourself any longer as my friend?"