As Marcus Gard stood upon the steps of Mahr’s residence, and heard the soft closing of its door behind him, he shut his eyes, drew himself erect and breathed deep of the keen, cold air. A rush of youth expanded every vein and artery. He experienced the physical and mental exultation of the strong man who has met and conquered his enemy. The mere personal expression of his anger had relieved him. He felt strong, alert, almost happy. He descended to the street and turned his steps homeward. At last something was accomplished. The serpent’s fangs were drawn. He experienced a cynical amusement in the thought that the path of true love had been smoothed by such equivocal means. Neither of the children would ever know of the shadows that had gathered so closely around them.

But, Mrs. Marteen what of her? Again the longing came upon him to know her awake to herself and to her own soul; to know the predatory instinct forever quieted, that upsurging of some remote inconscience of the race’s history of rapine in the open, and acquisition by stealth, forever conquered; to know her spirit triumphant. The momentary joy of successful battle passed, leaving him deeply troubled. All his fears returned. The sense of impending disaster, that had withdrawn for the moment, overwhelmed him once more.

He entered his own home absently, listened, abstracted, to the various items Saunders thought important enough to mention, dismissed him, and turned wearily to a pile of personal mail. His eye caught a familiar handwriting on a thick envelope.

From Mrs. Marteen evidently postmarked St. Augustine. He broke the seal, wondering how her letter came to bear that mark. What change had been made in her plans? He hesitated, panic-stricken, like a woman before an unexpected telegram. He withdrew the enclosure, noting at a glance a variety of papers the appearance of a diary.

“Dear, dear friend,” it began, “I must write I must, and to you, because you know you know, and yet you have made me your friend to you, because you love my little girl. They are killing me, killing me through her. I’m coming home, as fast as I can; I don’t yet know how, for I’m heading the other way, and I can’t stop the steamer, but I’m coming. I received a message, the second day out. It had been given to the purser for delivery and marked with the date that’s nothing unusual; I’ve had steamer letters delivered, one each day, during a whole crossing. I never gave it a thought when he handed it to me, I never divined. It seems to me now that I should have sensed it. I read it, and but how to tell you? I have it here; I’ll send it to you.”

A sheet of notepaper was pinned to the letter. Sick at heart, Gard unfastened it. Mahr’s name appeared at the bottom. Gard read: “Dear lady, you forgot to give your daughter the combination of the jewel safe and its inner compartment before you sailed. I am attending to that for you, and have no doubt that she will at once inventory the contents. We are always glad to return favors conferred upon us.”

Gard’s heart stood still. A sweeping regret invaded him that he had not slain the man when his hands were upon him. He threw the note aside and turned again to Mrs. Marteen’s letter.

“You see,” he read, “there is nothing for me to do. A wireless to Dorothy? She has doubtless had the information since the hour of my departure. What can I do? I have thought of you; but how make you, who know nothing of Victor Mahr, understand anything in a message that would not reveal all to everyone who must aid in its transmission? That at least mustn’t happen. I am praying every minute that she will go to you you, who know and have tolerated me. I can’t bear for her to know I can’t it’s killing me! My heart contracts and stops when I think of it.”

Further down the page, in another ink, evidently written later, was a single note:

“I’ve left a message with the wireless operator, a sort of desperate hope that it may be of some use to Dorothy, telling her to consult you on all matters of importance. I’ve written one to you, telling you to find her. The man says he’ll send them out as soon as he gets into touch with anyone.”

A still later entry:

“Two P.M. I’m in my cabin all the time. I think that I shall go mad. That sounds conventional, doesn’t it reminiscent of melodrama! I assure you it’s worse than real. I feel as if for years and years I’ve been asleep, and now’ve wakened up into a nightmare. I can write to you; that’s the one thing that gives me relief. Your kindness seems a shield behind which I can crawl. I can’t sleep; I can only not think no, it isn’t thinking I do it’s realizing and everything is terrible. The sunlight makes ripples on my cabin ceiling; they weave and part and wrinkle. I try to fix my attention on them, and hypnotize myself into lethargy. Sometimes I almost succeed, and then I begin realizing again. And in the night I stare at the electric light till my eyes ache, and try to numb my thoughts. Must my little girl know what I am? Can’t that be averted? I know it can’t I know, and yet I pray and pray I pray!"

Another sheet, evidently torn from a pad: “The wireless is out of order; they couldn’t send my messages. You don’t know the despair that has taken hold of me. My mind feels white that’s the only way I can describe it cold and white frozen, a blank. My body is that way, too. I hold my hands to the light, and it doesn’t seem as if there was even the faintest red. They are the hands of a dead person I wish they were! But I must know must know. We are due in Havana to-morrow. I shall take the first boat out to anywhere, where I can get a train, that’s the quickest. Oh, you, who have so often told me I must stop and think and realize things! Did you know what it was you wanted me to do? Have you any idea what torture is? You couldn’t! I don’t believe even Mahr would have done this to me if he had known; nobody could nobody could. Now, all sorts of things are assailing me; not only the horror that Dorothy should know, but the horror of having done such things. I can’t feel that it was I; it must have been somebody else. Why, I couldn’t have; it’s impossible; and yet I did, I did, I did! Sometimes I laugh, and then I am frightened at myself I did it just then; it was at the thought that here am I, writing letters I, who have always thought letters that incriminate were the weakness of fools, the blind spot of intelligence I, who have profited by letters written in anger, in love, in the passion of money-getting everything I’m writing writing from my bursting heart. Ah, you wanted me to realize; I’m fulfilling your wish. Oh, good, kind soul that you are, forgive me! I’m clinging to the thought of you to save me; I’m trusting in you blindly. It’s five days since I left.”

The sheet that followed was on beflagged yachting paper:

“What luck! I happened on the Detmores the moment I landed. They were just sailing. I transferred to them. I’m on board and homeward bound. We reach St. Augustine to-morrow night; then I’m coming through as fast as I can. I’ve thought it all over now. Since the wireless messages weren’t sent, I shall send no cable or telegram. I shall find out what the situation is, and perhaps it will be better for me just to disappear. It may be best that Dorothy shall never see me again. I shall go straight home. I’m posting this in St. Augustine; it will probably go on the same train with me. When you receive this and have read it, come to me. I shall need you, I know but perhaps you won’t care to; perhaps you won’t want to be mixed up in an affair that may already be the talk of the town. It’s one thing to know a criminal who goes unquestioned and another to befriend one revealed and convicted. Don’t come, then. I am at the very end of my endurance now. What sort of a wreck will walk into that disgraced home of mine? And still I pray and pray

Gard stood up. A sudden dizziness seized him. Go to her! Of course he must, at once, at once; there was not a moment to be lost. He calculated the length of time the letter had taken to reach him since its delivery in the city hours at least. And she had returned home to find what? He almost cried out in his anguish to find Dorothy gone, no one at the house knew where. What must she think?

He snatched up the telephone and called her number, his voice shaking in spite of his effort to control it.

The butler answered. Yes; madam had returned suddenly; had gone to the library for something; had asked for Miss Dorothy, and when she heard she was away, had made no comment, and left shortly afterwards. Yes, she appeared ill, very ill.

“I’m coming over,” Gard cut in. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He rang, ordered the servant to stop the first taxi, seized his coat and hat, left a peremptory order to his physician not to be beyond call, tumbled into his outer garments and made for the street. The taxi sputtered at the curb, but just as he dashed down the steps a limousine drew up, and Denning sprang from its opened door. His hand fell heavily upon Gard’s shoulder as he stooped to enter the cab. Gard turned, his overwrought nerves stinging with the shock of the other’s restraining touch.

Denning’s hand fell, for the face of his friend was distorted beyond recognition. The words his lips had framed to speak died upon his tongue, as with a furious heave Gard shook him off, entered the cab and slammed the door. Denning stood for a moment surprised into inaction, then, with an order to follow, he leaped into his own car and started in pursuit.

When Gard reached the familiar entrance, his anxiety had grown, like physical pain, almost to the point where human endurance ceases and becomes brute suffering. He felt cornered and helpless. At the door of Mrs. Marteen’s apartment a sort of unreasoning rage filled him. To ring; the bell seemed a futility; he wanted to break in the painted glass and batter down the door. The calm expression of the butler who answered his summons was like a personal insult. Were they all mad that they did not realize?

“Where is Mrs. Marteen?” he demanded hoarsely.

The servant shook his head. “She left two hours ago, at least,” he answered, with a glance toward the hall clock.

“What did she say what message did she leave?” Gard pushed by him impatiently, making for the stairs leading to the upper floor and the library.

The butler stared. “Why, nothing, sir. She asked for Miss Dorothy, and when none of us could tell her where she went, or why which we all thought queer enough, sir she didn’t seem surprised; so I suppose she knows, sir. Madam just went upstairs to the library first, and then to Miss Dorothy’s room the maid saw her, sir and then she came down and went out. She had on a heavy veil, but she looked scarce fit to stand for all that, and she went never said a word about her baggage or anything just went out to the cab that was waiting. Then about a half hour later, Mary, her maid, came in with the boxes. I hope there’s nothing wrong, sir?”

Gard listened, his heart tightening with apprehension. “Call White Plains, 56,” he ordered sharply. “Tell Miss Dorothy to come at once and then send for me, quick, now!” he commanded; and as the wondering flunky turned toward the telephone, he sprang up the stairs, threw open the library door and entered. The electric lights were blazing in the heat and silence of the closed room. The odor of violets hung reminiscent in the stale air. The panel by the mantelpiece was thrust back, and the door of the safe, so uselessly concealed, hung open, revealing the empty shelves within and the deep shadow of the inner compartment. He saw it all in a flash of understanding; the frantic woman’s rush to the place of concealment, the ravaged hiding place. What could she argue, but that all that her enemy had planned had befallen? Her child knew all, and had gone fled from her and the horror of her life, leaving no sign of forgiveness or pity.

Sick, and faint, Gard turned away. One door in the corridor stood open, left so, he divined, by the hurried passing of the mother from the empty nest, Dorothy’s room, all pink and white and girlish in its simplicity. One fragrant pillow, with its dainty embroidered cover, was dented, as if still warm from the burning cheek that had pressed it in an agony of loss. Nothing about the chamber was displaced; only an empty photograph frame lying upon the dressing table told of the trembling, pale hands that had bereft it of its jewel. She had taken her little girl’s picture with the heartbroken conviction that never again would she see its original, or that those girlish eyes would look upon her again save in fear and loathing. The empty case dropped from his hands to the silver-crowded, lace-covered table; he was startled to see in the mirror, hung with its frivolous load of cotillion favors and dance cards, his own face convulsed with grief, and turned, appalled, from his own image. His resourceful brain refused its functions. He could not guess her movements after that silent, definitive leave taking. He could but picture her tall, erect figure, outwardly composed and nonchalant, as she must have stood, facing the outer world, looking out to what to what? A mad hope rose in his breast. Would she turn to him? Would her instinctive steps lead her to seek his protection.

Yes. He must be where she could find him; he must be within reach. It could not be that she would pass thus silently into some unknown life or He would not concede the other possibility.

Turning blindly from the room, he descended to the lower floor, where the butler, with difficulty suppressing his curiosity, informed him that Miss Dorothy had answered that she would return to town at once.

Gard hesitated, then turned sharply upon the servant. “Your mistress has been ill, as you know. We have reason to believe that she is not quite herself. If you learn anything of her, notify me at once. No matter what orders she may give, you understand, or no matter how slight the clew send for me.”

Once again in the street, he paused, uncertain. His eye fell upon Denning’s limousine drawn up behind his waiting cab. Fury at this espionage sent him toward it. Thrusting his face In at the open window, he glared at his pursuer.

“What are you here for?” he snarled.

Denning looked at him coldly. “To see that you keep faith, that’s all. Your personal concerns must wait. Have you forgotten that you are to take the midnight train to Washington? I’m here to see that you do it.”

Gard wrenched open the door of the car. “You are, are you? Let the whole damned thing go!” he cried. “Send your proxies. This is a matter of life and death!”

“I know it,” said Denning; “it is to a lot of people who trust you; and you are going to do your duty if I have to kidnap you to do it. You have two hours before your train leaves. My private car is waiting for you. Make what plans you like till then; but I’ll not leave you; neither will Langley he’s following you, too. Come, buck up. Are you mad that you desert in the face of shipwreck?”

Gard turned suddenly, ordered his taxi to follow and got in beside Denning. His mood and voice were changed. “I’ve got to think. Don’t speak to me. Get me home as soon as you can.”

He leaned back, closed his eyes and concentrated all his energies. In the first place, Denning was right he must not desert, even with his own disaster close upon him. He owed his public his life, if necessary. As a king must go to the defense of his people in spite of every private grief or necessity, so he must go now. The very form of his decision surprised him. He realized that his yearning for another soul’s awakening had awakened his own soul. He had willed her a conscience and developed one himself. But, his decision reached with that sudden precision characteristic of him, his anxious fears demanded that every possible precaution be taken, every effort made that could tend to save or relieve the desperate situation he must leave behind him. First of all his physician to him he must speak the truth, and to him alone. Brencherly should be his active tool. Mahr must be impressed.

Springing from the motor at his own door, he snapped an order to his butler, and sent him with the cab to bring the doctor instantly. Once in the library, he telephoned for the detective. He then called up Victor Mahr, requested that however late he might call, a visitor be admitted at once, on a matter of the first importance and received the assurance that his wishes would be complied with; he asked Denning, who had followed him, to wait in another room, thrust back the papers on his table and settled himself to write.

“No one knows anything,” he scrawled, “neither Dorothy nor anyone else.” With succinct directness he covered the whole story explained, elucidated. Through every word the golden thread of his deep devotion glowed steadily. Would the letter ever reach her? Would her eyes ever see the reassuring lines? He refused to believe his efforts useless. She must come. He sealed and directed the letter, as Brencherly was admitted. Gard turned and eyed the young man sharply, wondering how much, how little he dared tell him.

“Brencherly,” he said slowly, “I’m giving you the biggest commission of your life. You’ve got to take my place here, for I’m going to the front. I’ve got to rely on you, and if you fail me, well, you know me that’s enough. Now, I want discretion first, last and all the time. Then I want foresight, tact, genius everything in you that can think and plan. Here are the facts: Mrs. Marteen has come back suddenly. She’s been ill. Her mind, from all I can learn, is affected. She has delusions; she may have suicidal mania. She has disappeared, and she must be found as secretly as possible. Her delusions and illness must not become a newspaper headline. I needn’t tell you it would make ‘a story.’ There’s one chance in fifty that she may come here, or telephone for me. You are not to leave this room. Answer that telephone you know her voice, don’t you? You are to tell her that I have her letter and she has nothing to worry about; that I have had charge of all her affairs in her absence; that her daughter knows of her return and wants her at once. Tell her that I have left a letter for her this one. When Miss Marteen calls up, tell her to go to her home; that her mother has come back, but has left again, and is ill; that I’m doing all in my power to find her. Tell her to call me at once on the long distance telephone to Washington, at the New Willard. Wherever I have to be I’ll arrange that I can be called at once. Do you understand?

“Dr. Balys will be here in a few moments. He will have the hospitals canvassed. If you locate her, Brencherly, send my doctor to her at once. Get her to her own apartment, and don’t let her talk. I want you to pick a man to watch the morgue; to look up every case of reported suicide that by any chance might be Mrs. Marteen here or in other cities.” Gard felt the blood leave his heart as he said the words, though there was no quaver in his voice. “If they should find her, don’t let her identity be known if there is any chance of concealing it, not until you reach me. Don’t let Miss Marteen know. Put another man on the hotel arrivals. She left St. Augustine Here ” He jotted down times and dates on a slip. “Work on that. Keep the police off. I’ll have Balys stay here, unless he locates her in any of the hospitals. My secretary is yours; and there are half a dozen telephones in the house; you can keep ’em all going. But, mind, there must be no leak. Watch her apartment, too. Question her maid up there. Of course that letter on the table there might interest you, but I think I had better trust you, since I make you my deputy. This is no small matter, Brencherly. Honesty is the best policy and there are rewards and punishments.”

The strain of grief and anxiety had set its mark on Gard’s face. His deadly earnestness and evident effort at self-control sent a thrill of pitying admiration through the detective’s hardened indifference. A rush of loyalty filled his heart; he wanted to help, without thought of reward or punishment. He felt hot shame that his calling had deserved the suspicion his employer cast upon it.

“I’ll do my honest best,” he said with such dear-eyed sincerity that Gard smiled wanly and held out his hand.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

The interview with the doctor lasted another half-hour. Time seemed to fly. Another hour and he must leave to others the quest that his soul demanded. Unquestioning and determined, Denning took him once more in the limousine. They were silent during the drive to Victor Mahr’s address. Gard descended before the house, leaving Denning in the car.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he closed the door of the automobile. “I’ll not be long; I give you my word.”

Denning smiled. “That’s all that’s wanted in Washington, old man. You’ve got a quarter of an hour to spare.”

Denning switched on the electric light and, taking a bundle of papers from his inside pocket, began to pencil swift annotation.

Gard ran lightly up the steps. It was quite on the cards that Mrs. Marteen in her anguish and despair might make an effort to see and upbraid the man whose hatred and vengeance had wrecked her life. Mahr must be warned of all that had taken place, and schooled to meet the situation to confess at once that his plans had been thwarted, that his tongue was forever bound to silence and that his intended victim was free. He, Marcus Gard, must dictate every word that might be said, foresee every possible form in which a meeting might come, and dictate the terms of Mahr’s surrender. Words and sentences formed and shifted in his mind as he waited impatiently for his summons to be answered. The butler bowed, murmuring that Mr. Mahr was expecting Mr. Gard, and preceded him across the anteroom to the well-remembered door of the inner sanctum, which he threw open before the guest, and retired silently.

Closing the door securely behind him, Gard turned toward the sole occupant of the room. Mahr did not heed his coming nor rise to greet him. The ticking of the carved Louis XV clock on the mantel seemed preternaturally loud in the oppressive silence.

Suddenly and unreasonably Gard choked with fear. In one bound he crossed the room and stood staring down at the face of his host. For an instant he stood paralyzed with amazement and horror. Then, as always, when in the heart of the tempest, he became calm, and his mind, as if acting under some heroic stimulant, became intensely clarified. Mahr was dead. He leaned forward and lifted the head; the body was still warm, and it fell forward, limp and heavy. On the left temple was a large contusion and a slight cut. The cause was not far to seek. On the table lay an ancient flintlock pistol, somewhat apart from a heap of small arms belonging to an eighteenth century trophy.

Murder! Murder and Mrs. Marteen! His imagination pictured her beautiful still face suddenly becoming maniacal with fury and pain. Gard suppressed an exclamation. Well, he would swear Mahr was alive at half after eleven, when he had seen him. If anyone knew of her coming before that, she would be cleared. No one knew of his own feud with Mahr; no one suspected it. His word would be accepted.

Mahr’s face, repulsive in life, was hideous in death a mask of selfishness, duplicity and venomous cunning from which departing life had taken its one charm of intelligence. He looked at the wound again. The blow must have been sudden and of great force. Acting on an impulse, he tiptoed to one of the curtained windows, unlocked the fastening and raised it slightly. A robbery why not? Silently moving back into the room, he approached the corpse and with nervous rapidity looted the dead man of everything of value, leaving the torn wallet, a wornout crumpled affair, lying on the floor. He opened and emptied the table drawers, as if a hurried search had been made. Slipping the compromising jewels into his overcoat pocket, he turned about and faced the room like a stage manager judging of a play’s setting. The luxurious furnishings, the long mahogany table warmly reflecting the lights of the heavily shaded lamp; the wide, gaping fireplace; the lurking shadows of the corners; the curtain by the opened window bellying slightly in the draught; above, in the soft radiance of the hooded electrics, the glowing, living, radiant personality of the Vandyke; below, the stark, evil face of the dead, with its blue bruised temple and blood-clotted hair.

Gard strove to reconstruct the crime as the next entrant would judge it the thief gliding in by the window; the collector busy over the examination of his curios; the blow, probably only intended to stun; the hasty theft and stealthy exit.

His heart pounded in his breast, but it was with outward calm that he crossed the threshold, calling back a “Good-night,” whose grim irony was not lost upon him. In the hall, as he put on his hat, he addressed the servant casually:

“Mr. Mahr says you may lock up and go. He does not want to be disturbed, as he has some papers that will keep him late. Remind Mr. Mahr to call me at the New Willard in the morning; I may have some news.”

As he left the house he staggered; he felt his knees shaking. With a superhuman effort he steadied himself Denning must not suspect anything unusual. He descended the steps with a firm tread, and pausing at the last step, twisted as if to reach an uncomfortably settled coat collar his quick glance taking in the contour of the house and the probability of access by the window. The glimpse was reassuring. By means of the iron railing a man might readily gain the ledge below the first floor windows. He entered the limousine and nodded to Denning.

“All right,” he said. “On to Washington.”