“He was the proprietor, you know, and Lucille was his stenographer,” exclaimed Dido. “I don’t know what he thought of her, for Lucille didn’t talk much; but she seemed to get along well enough.” Dido became silent, as Richard was intent on his own thoughts. Tolman Bike was the name of the man who was to marry Clara Chamberlain. Tolman Bike was also the name of the employer of Lucille and Maggie Williams and Dido Morgan. Tolman Bike, Miss Chamberlain’s fianceé, was the proprietor of a downtown factory, so it must be one and the same man. Well, and if so, could it be possible that Tolman Bike, the man who was engaged to marry a banker’s daughter, could have been in love with Lucille Williams, a poor stenographer, and persuaded her to leave her home for him? Richard was a young man, and the idea was not a surprising one to him. According to what he could learn, the dark-haired stenographer was fond of the things she could little afford to possess, and it was likely that her employer, knowing her desires, made it possible for her to gratify them. Now that he was to marry, he would not be likely to hold out any inducement for the girl to stay with him, and if they should happen across her now it was possible that she would gladly return to the humble home of her sister. Still, supposing Tolman Bike had found no attraction for him in the stenographer? It was a very delicate thing to handle, considering that Richard’s knowledge was mostly supposition. “Do you think that Maggie’s sister really worked those nights she was away from home?” Dick asked Dido. “She always brought extra money home, which proved she did,” Dido replied positively. “Did she ever talk about Tolman Bike?” “Never, except when she mentioned that he had dictated more work than usual, or something of that kind.” “Well, I believe that Tolman Bike can tell me something about Maggie’s sister,” Richard said. Dido looked at him with a smile of doubt. “If she is not with him, he can tell me who she is with, and that is just as well. I must see him immediately. I have no time to lose, for three days from to-morrow he is to be married.” CHAPTER XI. WHO WAS THE MAN THAT BOUGHT THE GOWN? But Tolman Bike was not easily found. Richard Treadwell got up early and went to the box factory, only to be told that Mr. Bike, suffering from ill-health, had gone out of the city for a time. The people in charge of the shop either feigned ignorance or did not know when he was to return, but Dick knew, in view of Mr. Bike’s approaching marriage, on the evening of the 7th, that he could not be absent from the city more than two days at the very most. But one thing he determined on. He would see Tolman Bike before his marriage to Miss Chamberlain, and for Maggie Williams’s sake he would know the whereabouts of her sister. And also for Maggie’s sake would he do what he could for the sister to induce her to return to her home.