Carshaw was not misled by Clancy's manner. He knew that his friend was only consumed by impatience to be on the trail. "You've fired plenty of questions at me," he said quietly. "Now it's my turn. I understand why you came to Burlington, but where is Steingall all this time?" "That big stiff! How do I know?" In a word, Clancy was uncommunicative during a whole hour. When the mood passed he spoke of other things, but, although it was ten at night when they reached New York, he raced Carshaw straight to East Twenty-seventh Street and Miss Goodman. There, in a few seconds, he was reading the agent's genuine note to Winifred--that containing the assurance that no appointment had been made for "East Orange." The letter concluded: "At first I assumed that a message intended for some other correspondent had been sent to me by error. Now, on reperusal, I am almost convinced that you wrote me under some misapprehension. Will you kindly explain how it arose?" Clancy, great as ever on such occasions, refrained from saying: "I told you so." "We'll call up the agent Monday, just for the sake of thoroughness," he said. "Meanwhile, be ready to come with me to East Orange to-morrow at 8 A.M." "Why not to-night?" urged Carshaw, afire with a rage to be up and doing. "What? To sleep there? Young man, you don't know East Orange. Run away home to your ma!" * * * * * "Where have you been?" inquired Mrs. Carshaw when her son entered. Her air was subdued. She had suffered a good deal these later days. "To Vermont." "Still pursuing that girl?" "Yes, mother." "Have you found her?" "No, mother." "Rex, have you driven me wholly from your heart?" "No; that would be impossible. Winifred would not wish it, callous as you were to her." "Do not be too hard on me. I am sore wounded. It is a great deal for a woman to be cast into the outer darkness." "Nonsense, mother, you are emerging into light. If your friends are so ready to drop you because you are poor--with the exceeding poverty of twenty-five hundred a year--of what value were they as friends? When you know Winifred you will be glad. You will feel as Dante felt when he emerged from the Inferno." "So you are determined to marry her?" "Unquestionably. And mark you, mother, when the clouds pass, and we are rich again, you will be proud of your daughter-in-law. She will bear all your skill in dressing. Gad! how the women of your set will envy her complexion." Mrs. Carshaw smiled wanly at that. She knew her "set," as Rex termed the Four Hundred. "Why is she called Bartlett?" she inquired after a pause, and Rex looked at her in surprise. "I have a reason," she continued. "Is that her real name?" "Now," he cried, "I admit you are showing some of your wonted cleverness."