He shoved the reins into his companion's hands, jumped down and running back burst in bright faced and eager upon Wanda, startling her with the sudden unexpectedness of his return. With his finger upon his lips, his air surcharged with mystery, he came close to her. "Have you wised up?" he whispered. "Got next to who the mysterious fairy is?" "She's Miss Claire Hazleton," said Wanda a little stiffly and a bit puzzled. "Rats!" grunted Mr. Dart putting much eloquence Into the monosyllable. "That's a bum monniker out of a French love story. It's the Roosian princess. It's Helga, that's who it is!" He slipped a little engraved calling card into her hand, winked into her amazed eyes, drew a pair of gloves out of his hip pocket, crumpled them in his hand and hastened back to the cart. Wanda stared a moment at the card. Then she flung it from her and with blazing eyes watched the flames in the fireplace lick at it. CHAPTER XVII "WHERE'S THAT TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND? WHAT'S THE ANSWER?" The little clock in Wayne Shandon's room maintained stoutly in the face of the gathering gloom outside, in defiance of the lighted lamp upon the table, that it was still an hour before sunset. The snow was still falling steadily, thickly, swept here and there into shifting mounds, choking the mountain passes, robing trees and fence posts and buildings, each feathery flake adhering where it struck softly as though it had been a gummed wafer. "Garth and I will have to get out to-morrow," Shandon muttered, drawing off his heavy coat and tossing it to the chair across the room, "or we'll have to beat it out on snowshoes--I wonder what's keeping Dart?" There came a rap at the front door and Shandon, supposing that already his question was answered, called, "Come in." "You never can tell what that little devil will do next," he grunted. "Snoop into a man's private business every time he gets the chance and then stand outside knocking at the door in a day like this. _Come in_." Then, when the knocking came again, louder, insistent and imperative, he realised that there was the bare possibility that the thumb latch had caught and, crossing the room he jerked the door open. "Is this Mr. Shandon?" The cool, confident voice though a woman's was not Wanda's, and Shandon realised that he had been a fool to let his heart leap as it had when his eyes made out through the murkiness that it was a woman. "Yes," he answered, wondering. "May I come in?" she asked a little impatiently. "I have come a long way to see you." Wondering more than ever he threw the door wide open, showed her the way into the living room and lighted a lamp. There was no fire in the room but she went quite naturally to the fireplace. He glanced at her sharply, knew that he had never seen her before for he would have remembered her, understood that she was a woman of the cities, and said,