couldn't have killed her—that isn't done."

And yet his heart smote him as he remembered the terror and distress written on that countenance and the cry for help.

"Something was the matter," memory insisted. "There they go west; west Tenth, Alexander Street, Tenth Avenue—"

The car lumbered on, the cab half a block, often more, in the rear, through endless regions of small shops and offices huddled together above narrow sidewalks, through narrow and winding streets paved with cobblestones and jammed with cars and trucks, squeezing past curbs where dirty children sat playing within a few inches of death-dealing wheels. Hambleton wondered what kept them from being killed by hundreds daily, but the wonder was immediately forgotten in a new subject for thought. The cab had stopped, although several yards of clear road lay ahead of it. The driver was climbing down. The motor-car was nosing its way along nearly a block ahead. Hambleton leaped out.

"Of course, we've broken down?" he mildly inquired. Deep in his heart he was superstitiously thinking that he would let fate determine his next move; if there were obstacles in the way of his further quest, well and good; he would follow the Face no longer.

"If you'll wait just a minute—" the driver was saying, "until I get my kit out—"

But Hambleton, looking ahead, saw that the car had disappeared, and his mind suddenly veered.

"Not this time," he announced. "Here, the meter says four-twenty—you take this, I'm off." He put a five-dollar bill into the hand of the driver and started on an easy run toward the west.

He had caught sight of smoke-stacks and masts in the near distance, telling him that the motor-car had almost, if not quite, reached the river. Such a vehicle could not disappear and leave no trace; it ought to be easy to find. Ahead of him flaring lights alternated with the steady, piercing brilliance of the incandescents, and both struggled against the lingering daylight.

A heavy policeman at the corner had seen the car. He pointed west into the cavernous darkness of the wharves.

"If she ain't down at the Imperial docks she's gone plump into the river, for that's the way she went," he insisted. The policeman had the bearing of a major-general and the accent of the city of Cork. Hambleton went on past the curving street-car tracks, dodged a loaded dray emerging from the dock, and threaded his way under the shed. He passed piles of trunks, and a couple of truckmen dumping assorted freight from an ocean liner. No motor-car or veiled lady, nor sound of anything like a woman's voice. Hambleton came out into the street again, looked about for another probable avenue of escape for the car and was at the point of bafflement, when the major-general pounded slowly along his way.

"In there, my son, and no nice place either!" pointing to a smaller entrance alongside the Imperial docks, almost concealed by swinging signs. It was plainly a forbidden way, and at first sight appeared too narrow for the passage of any vehicle whatsoever. But examination showed that it was not too narrow; moreover, it opened on a level with the street.

"If you really want her, she's in there, though what'll be to pay if you go in there without a permit, I don't know. I'd hate to have to arrest you."

"It might be the best thing for me if you did, but I'm going in. You might wait here a minute. Captain, if you will."

"I will that; more especially as that car was a stunner for speed and I already had my eye on her. I'd like to see you fish her out of that hole."

But Hambleton was out of earshot and out of sight. An empty passage smelling of bilge-water and pent-up gases opened suddenly on to the larger dock. Damp flooring with wide cracks stretched off to the left; on the right the solid planking terminated suddenly in huge piles, against which the water, capped with scum and weeds, splashed fitfully. The river bank, lined with docks, seemed lulled into temporary quietness. Ferry-boats steamed at their labors farther up and down the river, but the currents of travel left here and there a peaceful quarter such as this.

Hambleton's gaze searched the dock and the river in a rapid survey. The dock itself was dim and vast, with a few workmen looking like ants in the distance. It offered nothing of encouragement; but on the river, fifty yards away, and getting farther away every minute, was a yacht's tender. The figures of the two rowers were quite distinct, their oars making rhythmical flashes over the water, but it was impossible to say exactly what freight, human or otherwise, it carried. It was evident that there were people aboard, possibly several. Even as Hambleton strained his eyes to see, the outlines of the rowboat merged into the dimness. It was pointed like a gun toward a large yacht lying at anchor farther out in the stream. The vessel swayed prettily to the current, and slowly swung its dim light from the masthead.

"They've got her—out in that boat," said Hambleton to himself, feeling, while the words were on his lips, that he was drawing conclusions unwarranted by the evidence. Thus he stood, one foot on the slippery log siding of the dock, watching while the little drama played itself out, so far as his present knowledge could go. His judgment still hung in suspense, but his senses quickened themselves to detect, if possible, what the outcome might be. He saw the tender approach the boat, lie alongside; saw one sailor after another descend the rope ladder, saw a limp, inert mass lifted from the rowboat and carried up, as if it had been merchandise, to the deck of the yacht; saw two men follow the limp bundle over the gunwale; and finally saw the boat herself drawn up and placed in her davits. Hambleton's mind at last slid to its conclusion, like a bolt into its socket.

"They're kidnapping her, without a doubt," he said slowly. For a moment he was like one struck stupid. Slowly he turned to the dock, looking up and down its orderly but unprepossessing clutter. Dim lights shone here and there, and a few hands were at work at the farther end. The dull silence, the unresponsive preoccupation of whatever life was in sight, made it all seem as remote from him and from this tragedy as from the stars.

In fact, it was impersonal and remote to such a degree that Hambleton's practical mind, halted yet an instant, in doubt whether there were not some plausible explanation. The thought came back to him suddenly that the motor-car must be somewhere in the neighborhood if his conclusion were correct.

On the instant his brain became active again. It did not take long, as a matter of fact, to find the car; though when he stumbled on it, turned about and neatly stowed away close beside the partitioning wall, he gave a start. It was such a tangible evidence of what had threatened to grow vague and unreal on his hands. He squeezed himself into the narrow space between it and the wall, finally thrusting his head under the curtains of the tonneau.

It was high and dry, empty as last year's cockleshell. Not a sign of life, not a loose object of any kind except a filmy thing which Hambleton found himself observing thoughtfully. At last he picked it up—a long, mist-like veil. He spread it out, held it gingerly between a thumb and finger of each hand, and continued to look at it abstractedly. Part of it was clean and whole, dainty as only a bit of woman's finery can be; but one end of it was torn and twisted and stretched out of all semblance to itself. Moreover, it was dirty, as if it had been ground under a muddy heel. It was, in its way, a shrieking evidence of violence, of unrighteous struggle. Hambleton folded the scarf carefully, with its edges together, and put it in his pocket. Jimmy's actions from this time on had an incentive and a spirit that had before been lacking. He noted again the number of the car, and returned to the edge of the dock to observe the yacht. She had steamed up river a little way for some reason known only to herself, and was now turning very slowly. She