Jordan's heart popped into his mouth at this unexpected declaration. With difficulty he asked her to repeat her message, after which he stepped out to the curb and delivered it. And it was not until the machine started up and had gathered speed for its homeward journey that she gave the order to the footman to open the door for her. With a sigh of relief the footman cheerfully complied, and bowed her out. "First she said she was going to stay all night, and then she said she wasn't," he repeated rhythmically, "and now I wonder where the devil she's gone?" Madeline Braine was hardly out of hearing when Wilkinson sent post-haste for Flomerfelt. "Flomerfelt," he cried, the minute that worthy entered the room, "I've got a new job for you. Forget the Tri-State,--it's trivial, compared with this,--and find out the name of the man Madeline Braine is going to marry." "Marry!" gasped Flomerfelt. Wilkinson clutched him by the wrist, and continued: "And when you've found out his name, find the man. And when you find the man, buttonhole him...." "Buttonhole him!" echoed the astonished Flomerfelt. "Don't you mean throttle him?" "Buttonhole him," repeated Wilkinson savagely, "and then tell him all about the girl he loves--and me." * * * * * A few days later, alone in a bare, hall-bedroom, on the east side of the big city, Madeline Braine sat staring, with eyes that saw not, into the gloom without. Well might she reflect that nothing but a miracle could save her now; well might her reason totter at the thought of what life held for her in the future. The letter in her lap read: " ... There's no use in my seeing you again. I take it from your silence that you prefer not to explain what I have learned about you--what I have proved to myself to be a fact--the truth of your relations with Peter V. Wilkinson. I start West to-night. "Yours, "H. T." V In Mrs. Pallet-Searing's house on Fifth Avenue was an authorised hiding-place intended, evidently, for no more than two persons, which was reached by a short journey through the interior flower-garden: an undignified plunge between some half-dozen palm-tubs, and a short ascent up a wide, circular staircase. In this haven--known only to the initiated,--a week later, Eliot Beekman and Leslie Wilkinson had been sitting for some time. "We must have been here three hours!" the girl suddenly exclaimed in tones of deep contrition. "Half the people must have gone. I've deliberately cut every man on the last half of my card," she rattled on., "thereby completely ruining my chances of ever marrying any of them; and besides," she concluded limply, "what will Mrs. Pallet-Searing have to say ..." "How did we get here anyway?" questioned the young man.