times. He then placed the bundle on the steps and ran back to the waiting carriage, into which he stepped.

"Off with you!"

"That's a good word, sir. Maybe we can make your train."

"Do you think you could find this place again?"

"You couldn't get me on this pike again, sir, for a thousand; not me!"

The door slammed and the unknown sank back against the cushions. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the damp perspiration from his forehead. The big burden was off his mind. Whatever happened in the future, they would never be able to get him through his heart. So much for the folly of his youth.

It was a quarter after ten. Miss Susan Farlow had just returned to the reception room from her nightly tour of the upper halls to see if all her charges were in bed, where the rules of the school confined them after nine-thirty. It was at this moment that she heard the thunderous knocking at the door. The old maid felt her heart stop beating for a moment. Who could it be, at this time of night? Then the thought came swiftly that perhaps the parent of some one of her charges was ill and this was the summons. Stilling her fears, she went resolutely to the door and opened it.

"Who is it?" she called.

No one answered. She cupped her hand to her ear. She could hear the clatter of horses dimly.

"Well!" she exclaimed; rather angrily, too.

She was in the act of closing the door when the light from the hall discovered to her the bundle on the steps. She stooped and touched it.

"Good heavens, it's a child!"

She picked the bundle up. A whimper came from it, a tired little whimper of protest. She ran back to the reception room. A foundling! And on her doorstep! It was incredible. What in the world should she do? It would create a scandal and hurt the prestige of the school. Some one had mistaken her select private school for a farmhouse. It was frightful.

Then she unwrapped the child. It was about a year old, dimpled and golden haired. A thumb was in its rosebud mouth and its blue eyes looked up trustfully into her own.

"Why, you cherub!" cried the old maid, a strange turmoil in her heart. She caught the child to her breast, and then for the first time noticed the thick envelope pinned to the child's cloak. She put the baby into a chair and broke open the envelope.

"Name this child Florence Gray. I will send annually a liberal sum for her support and reclaim her on her eighteenth birthday. The other half of the inclosed bracelet will identify me. Treat the girl well, for I shall watch over her in secret."

Into the fixed routine of her humdrum life had come a mystery, a tantalizing, fascinating mystery. She had read of foundlings left on doorsteps—from paper-covered novels confiscated from her pupils—but that one should be placed upon her own respectable doorstep! Suddenly she smiled down at the child and the child smiled back. And there was nothing more to be done except to bow before the decrees of fate. Like all prim old maids, her heart was full of unrequited romance, and here was something she might spend its floods upon without let or hindrance. Already she was hoping that the man or woman who had left it might never come back.

The child grew. Regularly each year, upon a certain date, Miss Farlow received a registered letter with money. These letters came from all parts of the world; always the same sum, always the same line—"I am watching."

Thus seventeen years passed; and to Susan Farlow each year seemed shorter than the one before. For she loved the child with all her heart. She had not trained young girls all these years without becoming adept in the art of reading the true signs of breeding. There was no ordinary blood in Florence; the fact was emphasized by her exquisite face, her small hands and feet, her spirit and gentleness. And now, at any day, some one with a broken bracelet might come for her. As the days went on the heart of Susan Farlow grew heavy.

"Never mind, aunty," said Florence; "I shall always come back to see you."

She meant it, poor child; but how was she to know the terrors which lay beyond the horizon!

The house of Stanley Hargreave, in Riverdale, was the house of no ordinary rich man. Outside it was simple enough, but within you learned what kind of a man Hargreave was. There were rare Ispahans and Saruks on the floors and tapestries on the walls, and here and there a fine painting. The library itself represented a fortune. Money had been laid out lavishly but never wastefully. It was the home of a scholar, a dreamer, a wide traveler.

In the library stood the master of the house, idly fingering some papers which lay on the study table. He shrugged at some unpleasant thought, settled his overcoat about his shoulders, took up his hat, and walked from the room, frowning slightly. The butler, who also acted in the capacity of valet and was always within call when his master was about, stepped swiftly to the hall door and opened it.

"I may be out late, Jones," said Hargreave.

"Yes, sir."

Hargreave stared into his face keenly, as if trying to pierce the grave face to learn what was going on behind it. "How long have you been with me?"

"Fourteen years, sir."

"Some day I shall need you."

"My life has always been at your disposal, sir, since that night you rescued me."

"Well, I haven't the least doubt that when I ask you will give."

"Without question, sir. It was always so understood."

Hargreave's glance sought the mirror, then the smileless face of his man. He laughed, but the sound conveyed no sense of mirth; then he turned and went down the steps slowly, like a man burdened with some thought which was not altogether to his liking. He had sent an order for his car, but had immediately countermanded it. He would walk till he grew tired, hail a taxicab, and take a run up and down Broadway. The wonderful illumination might prove diverting. For eighteen years nearly; and now it was as natural for him to throw a glance over his shoulder whenever he left the house as it was for him to breathe. The average man would have grown careless during all these years; but Hargreave was not an average man; he was, rather, an extraordinary individual. It was his life in exchange for eternal vigilance, and he knew and accepted the fact.

Half an hour later he got into a taxicab and directed the man to drive down-town as far as Twenty-third Street and back to Columbus circle. The bewildering display of lights, however, in nowise served to lift the sense of oppression that had weighed upon him all day. South of Forty-second Street he dismissed the taxicab and stared undecidedly at the brilliant sign of a famous restaurant. He was neither hungry nor thirsty; but there would be strange faces to study and music.

It was an odd whim. He had not entered a Broadway restaurant in all these years. He was unknown. He belonged to no clubs. Two months was the longest time he had ever remained in New York since the disposal of his old home in Madison Avenue and his resignation from his clubs. This once, then, he would break the law he had written down for himself. Boldly he entered the restaurant.

Some time before Hargreave surrendered to the restless spirit of rebellion, bitterly to repent for it later, there came into this restaurant a man and a woman. They were both evidently well known, for the head waiter was obsequious and hurried them over to the best table he had left and took the order himself.

The man possessed a keen, intelligent face. You might have marked him for a successful lawyer, for there was an earnestness about his expression which precluded a life of idleness. His age might have been anywhere between forty and fifty. The shoulders were broad and the hands which lay clasped upon the table were slim but muscular. Indeed, everything about him suggested hidden strength and vitality. His companion was small, handsome, and animated. Her frequent gestures and mutable eyebrows betrayed her foreign