his head in a spasmodic grimace. The sigh with which he settled back in his chair was one of utter weariness.

Phil gave a slight cough to announce his presence.

"Pardon me, Uncle Milt, if I'm intruding, but I didn't know you were in town—— Why, what's wrong?" he ended quickly; for his uncle had sprung from his chair and was clinging to the edge of the desk for support while he stared as if he were gazing at an apparition.

In truth, quite aside from his quiet entry, the young man's appearance was startling enough. His facial disfigurement achieved a bizarre effect which the condition of his clothes served to heighten. The once jaunty panama hat hung shapelessly about his ears and from beneath it a plaster of blond hair slanted across his forehead rakishly. His collar was a soggy mess, from which depended a dark red string in sorry travesty of a flowing tie. His shirt was soiled with mud, his coat and trousers full of wrinkles.

"For heaven's sake, boy! What's happened? Train wreck?" He dropped back into his chair, eyeing his nephew in amazement. "Why aren't you at Sparrow Lake with your aunt? Get my wire? Eh? They told me you left this morning——" His voice was hoarse and it trailed away as if the situation embarrassed him and he was not quite sure how to handle it. He stared uncertainly, drumming nervously with his fingers.

Phil nodded as he sat down in the nearest chair and stared back. The surprise of finding his uncle there was overridden by the new discovery of his evident diffidence, his flushed face, a lack of that self-contained bearing which always had marked him as a man of large affairs. It was his uncle's strict rule, he recalled, never to take a second drink; it was an axiom of the Honorable Milton's that the second drink drew the cork on indiscretion and eventual inebriety. That something had happened which must have disturbed him greatly to make him break this rule was a deduction as simple as the evidence that he had broken it.

"What about you, Uncle Milt?" suggested Kendrick after a brief explanation of his change of plans—a recital which carefully avoided mention of McCorquodale or the mysterious woman of the fog. "If I had known that Aunt Dolly was going to be alone I wouldn't have let Thorpe persuade me to stay over a day."

"I was called in unexpectedly—important business——" He pushed uneasily at the papers on the desk. "Have a cigar, Philip?" He passed the humidor as he spoke, then scratched a match and held it to his nephew's selection with careful courtesy. He shook his head in smiling disapproval of the swollen eye. "Bad business, young man! Bad business! A fine flower of folly you have there, eh? Don't grow 'm like that at the Ladies' Aid meeting at the First Baptist Church, do they?" He settled back in his chair, chortling.

Phil smiled as he tossed aside his hat.

"Blame it on the fog, Uncle Milt. I was foolish enough to trip over something in the dark and take a header down the Canoe Club stairs into the water," he explained mendaciously. "Me for the woods to-morrow without fail. I guess I got off easy at that, for you can't see your hand in front of your face out on the bay to-night. Stinson almost ran me down with the launch—missed me by a couple of feet and that's all."

"Stinson? Stinson, d'you say? Don't mean our Stinson—in—our launch? Not our Stinson in our very own launch, Phil'p? You s'prise me greatly. In the dark like that—— How do you know?" he challenged.

Kendrick smiled at the transparency of this attempt.

"I recognized his voice for one thing. Stinson was speeding the parting guests—the three who drank out of the glasses yonder. Pshaw, you know as well as I do that you sent me that wire to clear the way for this little affair to-night, and you're wishing right now that I was at the bottom of the lake! But it's all right, Uncle Milt."

His uncle did not laugh. Instead he eyed the younger man from beneath heavy brows that met in a scowl.

"Sherlock Holmes, eh? When'd you start emulating Sherlock Holmes?" he growled. "Been a meeting here—yes—business. What of it?"

"Nothing at all, if you say so. Only don't make the mistake of thinking I'm still a mere kid, Uncle Milt. I'd hate to think there was any other reason why you have never admitted me to your confidence. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps I might—well, sort of dig in and help you in some way? You and Aunt Dolly have been mighty good to me and I kind of feel—— Well, you know what I mean," he finished diffidently.

The Honorable Milton Waring's brows unbent. His gaze wandered automatically to the pile of papers on the desk and for a moment he was silent.

"There is nothing you can do, Phil—— Phill_up_,——to help," he said at last, shaking his head slowly, while the tired lines deepened about his eyes. "I——thanks all same."

Kendrick hunched his chair nearer and laid a hand on the other's knee.

"You're in trouble of some kind," he said earnestly. "Please don't try to deny it, Uncle Milt. I promised Billy Thorpe I'd join him next week on a fishing trip, but that's all off if I can be of any use to you. That special course in engineering next fall—that's all off, too, if you need me. It's my duty to help and it's your duty to let me. We both owe it to Aunt Dolly, don't we?"

A look of apprehension sprang into the tired eyes. He waved his hand swiftly towards the empty glasses.

"Your aunt—she must know nothing of—all this. I warn you now, Phil'p,—not a word. No use causing her needless worry. Her social duties, understand,—— These business affairs——" His voice trailed again and he looked anxiously for his nephew's acquiescence.

"That goes as a matter of course," nodded Kendrick. "So far as I am concerned, this little chat with you has never taken place and there's been nobody here except the servants—so far as I am concerned. But is there any danger of anybody—— What would be the object of anybody spying on this particular little seance——?" He paused at the quick consternation which the suggestion aroused.

"What do you mean, Philip?" demanded the Honorable Milton sharply. He sat up more alertly. "Why do you ask such a foolish question? Are you talking at random or——?"

"Very much at random," assured Kendrick hastily. "I was just wondering. Because—— Well, it would be the only way anybody who happened to be interested would find out about your meeting, wouldn't it? I don't intend to talk about it, as I said before. I thought perhaps if it had anything to do with the political situation, for instance,—detectives, you know—around election time. I don't pretend to know very much about these things, of course."

"You are fortunate," grunted the Honorable Milton, dryly. "Seems to me you are allowing your imagination to run away with you, young man. Advise you to curb it."

Phil took a long pull at his cigar and studied his uncle keenly as he blew the smoke into the air.

"Do you want to know how I really got this beauty spot—this 'flower of folly' as you called it?" he asked unexpectedly. "I had a little argument with a fellow to-night who insisted that you were—he retracted it, of course—were a political grafter!"

The smile with which the Honorable Milton Waring had welcomed the promised change of subject faded slowly. He wagged his head in reproof.

"Very foolish of you, Philip—to take any notice of that sort of thing. Let 'em talk!" Yet he looked at this nephew of his with a new