“Yes,” continued the woman called Sybil, “Mag was here, and bade me good-by. She’s going off. What’s happened, Mr. Carter? Mag wouldn’t explain.” “Where did she go, Sybil?” asked the detective, paying no attention to the woman’s query. “She did not tell me. But I never saw Mag in just the way she was. She said she was tired of life, tired of pulling other people’s chestnuts out of the fire, and now and then she acted like a person on the verge of insanity. She may have gone to the river, for once or twice she mentioned it in despairing tones.” “How long has she been gone?” eagerly questioned the detective. “Barely twenty minutes.” “I’ll see you later, Sybil,” cried the detective, turning to the door. “I must find Mag, if possible.” “She’s Nora now, you know.” “Yes, yes.” “She dropped ‘Mag’ months ago, or soon after she came down the river.” “But she’s Mag yet,” smiled Carter, and in another second the woman was left alone wondering why he wanted to see Nora so badly. There were many chances against Nick finding the woman he sought, but he did not despair. The piers of New York are many and long. From them thousands have leaped to their death, or been thrown into the waters after dark by those whose hands are red with crime. More than once the detective’s trail had taken him to the docks, and there he had picked up more than one clew. Every dock in the city was known to Carter. While among them he was at home, and knew where they began and ended. The bare thought that this old criminal had gone to the river in a fit of remorse, for he doubted not that she thought Margie had perished in the fire, urged him on. Of course, if Nora intended to commit suicide she had had ample time to carry out her plans, but still there was a chance that she had changed her mind. The detective reached the river at a spot nearest the house he had just left. He could see nothing of the hunted woman, and no crowd such as gathers on the piers when the body of a suicide has been discovered greeted him. The detective walked along the river front for some distance with his senses on the alert. All at once he caught sight of something floating in the water, and he stopped suddenly and leaned forward. It did not take him long to see that the object was the body of a woman, and Carter called a policeman who stood a short distance away. “That’s the same woman!” cried the patrolman the moment he caught sight of the body. “What woman?” asked Carter. “Why, sir, the woman who came down here three hours ago and asked me some fool questions about the river.” “Well?” “I didn’t notice which way she went. But that’s her.” Nick and the policeman managed to bring the body against the logs of the pier, and the detective clambered down and hauled it up. The burden was a heavy one, but the detective’s hand did not lose its grip, and in time the body lay on the wharf, which it drenched.