By running the last hundred yards, he realized this scheme; reached the traverse first; lowered himself over the stone abutment; dropped to the flagging at the bottom of the cut. The road he knew to be one of four which cross-line Central Park as unostentatiously as possible to accommodate the heavy vehicular traffic from East Side to West and back again. Much as he resented every reminder of the fallacy of Polkadot’s pet illusion and his own—that this was a bit of home—he appreciated that Father Knickerbocker, even for the sake of giving his rich and poor this vast melting pot, could not have asked “business” to drive around an oblong extending from Fifty-ninth to One-hundred-tenth Streets. It was something to rejoice over that, while utility was served, the roadways were sunk so deep that the scenic effect of the whole was scarcely marred. During his wait close against the shadowed side of the wall, Pape’s thoughts sped along at something the recent pace of his feet. The look on Jane Lauderdale’s face when he had surprised her at her digging just now was that same look of fear which had haunted him since she had opened her restored, but emptied heirloom box. The strangeness of her behavior afterward, the cruelty of her suspicion of him, her denial of him to-night—all only emphasized that pitiable, terrorized look. Had her object then and now the sameness of her look? Was she seeking over the expanse of the park that mysterious, stolen something which formerly had been contained in a snuff-box? If so, what clew could she have found that it might be cachéd beneath the poplars? Buried treasure! The _motif_ had inspired thrillers since thrills had been commercialized. But treasure buried in Manhattan’s heart? So improbable was the thought that, except for one thing, he might have adjudged the eccentric-acting Miss Lauderdale to be mildly mad—the one thing being that he knew she was sane. He did not, therefore, waste time doubting the entire defensibility of his self-selected lady. She had good reason for covering her personality by the garb and gait of a crone before essaying her hunt; for feigning to gather herbs while the daylight lasted; even for refusing to recognize him after that first startled monosyllable which had been the extent of her half of their interview. In bonnet and black she had every chance of being considered inside the law in the Irish, mother-loving eyes of most of the “sparrow cops,” although literally well outside. Dressed as the upper-crust young beauty he first had met three nights ago, she would have attracted—and deservedly—her “gallery” in no time. Come to consider, her crooked course home was also logically straight. Her disguise would have aroused suspicion in a taxi and made her conspicuous in a streetcar. Since she knew her park, the cross-cut home was preferable.