McKenna, though perceiving how completely she had prepared the isolation of the confidence he had just heard, did not again signal his objection, perhaps divining the futility of opposing such an appeal. Beecher bowed in assent. "Certainly, Rita," he said, with a pride that brought a smile of amusement to McKenna’s lips. "I wish McKenna to do everything he can for you and in exactly the way you wish." "Thank you," she said, with a little pressure of his hand. Then turning, she added: "This I will say to you both. I have my reasons for believing that the ring will be returned within ten days; if it isn’t then I shall have more to disclose." "Returned?" said Beecher, struck by the similarity of her prophecy and that of Nan Charters. "Exactly. Until then, I believe all that is necessary is to wait for developments." She turned toward the detective, who waited like a statue. "Mr. McKenna, I know you are a busy man. I won’t keep you. Mr. Beecher has come to assist me on a very painful errand, one on which I would trust no other man that I know in New York." She held out her hand. "I do not often make mistakes in men, or I should not have told you what I did. Good-night; I shall call you soon." McKenna bowed, experiencing, despite his resentment at her mastery of the evening, a feeling of respect and deference. "Beecher is a kitten in her hands," he said to himself as he entered the street. "She played me as she wanted to. One thing’s certain. She wants to employ me to keep me from doing anything. Evidently her own game is more important than the ring—or is there blackmail mixed up in this? I have it! Mrs. Kildair knows the thief, but is afraid to act until—until certain things straighten out between her and Mr. John G. Slade." "And now, Teddy," said Mrs. Kildair, as soon as the door had closed behind the detective, "you know what I want of you. I have arranged everything. My carriage is waiting." Half an hour later, Mrs. Bloodgood joined them, heavily veiled. They drove to the house next to that of Majendie, and, at a word from Mrs. Kildair, Beecher remained below on guard in the flickering obscurity of the street. The two women went hurriedly up the steps of Majendie’s home, where the door was opened for them by some one who had been awaiting their arrival. For a full half-hour Beecher, prey to a profound melancholy, continued his aimless, mechanical pacing, his head raised, glancing past the jagged black silhouettes of the house-tops at the reddened clouds of the unreal night, which brought him not a clear vision of immense and purifying spaces but the heavy reflection of the illuminated, surging streets. "What will my life be?" he thought, conjuring up the future. "Calm and commonplace? Or shall I ever be linked to some such tragedy—torn to pieces, all in a day—wrecked!"