splendidly free gesture I had intended. For a moment, as I attempted this last fatal manœuver, I saw the sweet sky spreading before me in all its virgin quality of blueness, the holy white of God's beautiful winter landscape that my evil heart had once blasphemed, the solemn grandeur of the somber pine-woods beyond. I thought of my father, my mother, my sister, my brother. I thought of a whole lot of relatives that I don't even possess. I thought of being too young to die. I thought of being too

great a fool not to die.

Oh, I thought of about everything! Then I disappeared.

I disappeared almost completely this time. They had to dig me out; they were seriously concerned. But I sat with them that evening by the fire con

suming numerous hot toddies, and I really seemed to have impressed Elsie. At least she says now that it revealed my noble nature. But then she immediately turns away and puts her handkerchief in her mouth. If one may adopt the Norse spelling, is n't that the eternal ski of it?

Vivian Roxborough, very smart in new ultra-English clothes, had been observed threading his way among the crowd on deck, plainly in quest of Miss Ellis. No sooner had he caught sight of her than he pressed forward, and no sooner was he near her than he stopped short, with his eyes intent on the lady at Miss Ellis's side.

Greta had forborne to challenge curiosity by absolutely concealing her features. But probably no one better than she understood the serviceability for disguise of a heavily figured white-lace veil. Mr. Roxborough must have known her well to be able to say with such

assurance:

"Why, Greta-" and then in the rebound from that betrayal of too close acquaintanceship away to the other end of the scale: "I did n't know you were on board, Mrs. Guedalla."

Greta stared at him through the meshes of the elaborate pattern and said with her grand air:

"Some mistake, I think." Roxborough pinched his lips.

"Oh, you don't remember me! Well, perhaps you'll remember your husband. I'm rather expecting my manager to meet me on the dock. Or perhaps it 's you Mr. Guedalla is waiting for," Roxborough added with a peculiar smile.

Greta put a hand through Nan's arm and drew her near the gangway. She must have said something explanatory, for the girl turned her back with decision upon her late admirer. But her face was more than disturbed; it was shamed, frightened. A public rebuff is a terrible thing to the innocent mind.

Napier stood close behind the pair, waiting for the excuse he felt that Mrs. Guedalla would make for not going down with the crowd to confront her husband. But the lady was too entirely mistress of herself for that. Perhaps she counted on Mr. Guedalla's knowledge of the wisdom of not interfering with his wife. Straight down the gangway she walked, Nan behind her, recovering herself enough to make little signals toward a group-two ladies, a young man, and three children with flags-waving and smiling at Nan Ellis, first from the end of the crowded pier, then running along at the side, and now

waiting finally at the bottom of the gangway to fall upon the girl with their welcome.

Napier had no difficulty in deciding which of them was her mother despite the fact that Mrs. Ellis looked more like an elder sister. Yes, that must be a nice woman; but stupid, he decided, noting the cordiality, after that first motion of surprise, with which Mrs. Ellis received the lady in the baffling veil. She kissed Greta through the lace. Bah! With Nan's address in his pocket, he could afford to have her and her party in the hands of a customs officer, opening trunks on the pier.

Indeed, he had little choice, being at once appropriated by an English friend and an American steel magnate. Napier was carried away into a world about which all that he had heard had very little prepared him.

His private as well as patriotic interest in the possibilities unfolded did not prevent him from putting himself in touch with the British Intelligence Department before he dined that first night on American soil. The chief agent in New York was, or had been, as Napier knew, the British partner in an American shipping house. That he had married an American heiress Napier also knew. He was the more surprised to find Mr. Roderick Taylor installed en garçon at an hotel.

"My w-wife," said the long, fair young man with the strictly pomaded hair, "is in P-Paris with her sister, who is or-organizing American Hospital Relief. In any case"-his smile seemed to accept Napier as one to be treated frankly-"all sorts of coming and going is less marked in a c-caravansary like this."

He had run across Stein coming out from luncheon, said Mr. Taylor. Old Viennese friend of his, Stein. Had him up along with O'Leary, the Sinn Feiner, and a German-American dark horse, Bieber. "We are all dining at Bieber's to-morrow," said Mr. Taylor, and smiled as one who preserves a native modesty in full view of triumph. It was n't the smile he showed to his experimental bridge parties. "Greta von S-S-" The slight, very slight stammer gave a touch of unreadiness which perhaps

prevented the extreme competency of Mr. Roderick Taylor from being too marked. Napier noticed later that the stammer was hardly discernible when the engaging young man was off duty.

"Yes, von Schwarzenberg." He helped Taylor over the barbed-wire of the Teutonic syllables.

"Know her?" Taylor could go on glibly enough. "Rather!" And what, he asked, made Mr. Napier think the woman who had crossed with him as Mademoiselle La Farge was

Clearly Mr. Taylor, whether in obedience to his own judgment or to the issue of some mot d'ordre, was disposed to take Napier at face-value; but he was far from accepting Napier's facts on the sole ground of Napier's belief in them. After the Schwarzenberg incident had been probed and sifted, Mr. Taylor sat back in his chair, gently perplexed and obviously perturbed.

"It 's not that we have n't been expecting her. The chief value of one of our men is that he has hitherto been able to keep in touch with her. But if she really has left the other side, he ought to have warned us." He took up the receiver of his desk telephone, and then laid it down. "We go warily with Miss von Schwarzenberg." He got up, and opened a door at the very moment that a frail, grizzled man entered the adjoining room from the hall. "Oh, Macray, just a moment!"

The man did not stop to take off either hat or coat. Middle-aged, dyspeptic-looking, he came in, settling his black-rimmed pince-nez on an insufficient nose. He took a reporter's notebook out of his pocket and stood there, sour, hopeless, a mere sketch of a man in black and white.

"Greta Schwarz is back," said Mr. Taylor. Without a pause and in the same low voice he ran rapidly over the main facts in the story Napier had told him. "Just set them to work," he wound up. "Quickest way to get on her track." He turned to Napier. "What's the American girl's address?" Napier did not disguise his reluctance to produce that particular information.

"You understand," he repeated for the benefit of the pessimist with the

"Of course, of course," agreed Mr. Taylor.

Macray impassively poised his pen. Napier gave the address. Macray set down a grudging stroke or two, and then said:

"All New York knows where to find Schwarzenberg." He dragged out the information as though talking increased his affliction, whatever it was. "Just heard. Been seeing reporters all afternoon."

"Who's been seeing reporters?" Taylor demanded. "Schwarz."

"The deuce she has!"

Macray felt in his pocket. He drew out an evening paper, damp from the press, and folded to display:

COLONIALISM IN AMERICA
ENGLISH DICTATION
IMPRESSIONS OF GERMAN-
AMERICAN

ON RETURNING FROM BELLIG-
ERENT COUNTRIES

Napier stood at Mr. Taylor's side, and together they read how Miss von Schwarzenberg had not been an hour on this dear American soil before she perceived with pain that, while Germany was fighting for freedom of the seas, for human rights, America was forgetting she 'd ever won hers. After a genial reference in passing to the burning of Washington by the British, the lady protested that history was n't her strong point. Would some one, therefore, kindly tell her who had given the seas to the British? Upon the eloquent pause that seemed to have followed that request, the lady illustrated the service Germany was rendering the United States in protesting against English domination. It must be very humiliating, humiliating, the lady thought, for Americans to have their mail-bags opened, their letters confiscated. "Of course some of the letters are for Germany. Why not? Is England to tell you to whom you may write? Is n't America a neutral? Or is that a pretence?" She gave cases of bitter hard

ships, German parents, old, ill, dying, whose faithful sons had long been accustomed to supply with remittances from America. In suffering British interference, America, so Miss Greta told the interviewer, was failing in dignity.

The part of the interview which occasioned most concern to Napier was the fact that it was stated to have taken place at a named hotel, "where Miss von Schwarzenberg is staying with old friends."

Mr. Taylor laughed a trifle ruefully as he threw down the sticky paper and applied a pocket-handkerchief to his long, white fingers.

"I like America, but there 's no denying it's a queer country," he assured the new-comer, "and a queer people. Is n't it so, Macray?"

Macray's only answer was a faint groan. He picked up his paper and walked gloomily out.

"The very strangest mixture," Taylor went on, "shrewdness and innocence. Take their attitude toward this woman. She impresses them enormously." He disregarded Napier's "She impresses most people." "Over here they take this Mrs. Guedalla, or Schwarz, or whatever her real name is they take her not only for a woman of education, but a woman wohlgeboren. They accept her account of misuse of her name. An obscure Western actress who, you, are told, bears a certain dubious likeness to the real Greta von Schwarzenberg had feloniously adopted that honorable name. 'You know the stage way,' says Schwarzenberg. "Tottie Tompkins turns into Arabella Beauchamp.' The real Miss von Schwarzenberg has naturally never been on the stage. She is musical. All gebildete Germans are musical. And that fact had been her salvation, so she tells these fatuous friends of hers over here. Being musical in the thorough German way enabled her to hold out against her proud, despotic father. When he tried to compel her to marry the dissolute Freiherr of vast possessions, Miss Greta ran away with her governess. always the scene is carefully set! And then, in order not to live on the governess, Miss Greta took to teaching music. They swallow it all! They look

Oh,

upon her as a patriot. A German patriot, of course; but still laboring devotedly and legitimately for her native land."

What made Taylor's dealing with her a delicate matter was the fact that she had these powerful friends, Americans whose good faith and general decency of conduct no reasonable being could doubt. She had kept herself in close relations with these people even while she was abroad. His wife discovered that in Paris. How did Schwarzenberg keep up these useful relations? Through the one channel of organized participation in the war then open to American sympathizers, relief.

"Lord! the jobs put through in the name of relief!" he exclaimed.

On his second evening in New York Napier went with the Van Pelts, his hosts, to hear "Lohengrin" at the Metropolitan. In a stage-box sat Miss Greta, very handsome, in green, with a silver wreath on her fair hair. The elderly lady beside her, according to the Van Pelts, was a well-known society leader with a taste for philanthropy. She had largely financed a certain branch of American relief work. That was her husband just coming into the box. But the girl the Van Pelts could n't make out the girl. Napier could.

The next day, three tables away from him, at a men's luncheon given to Napier at a hotel, Greta again with a different party except for Nan. Napier saw the girl's face brighten in that first, instance of catching sight of him. He saw her half rise, and then, as Greta fixed her eyes on Nan's, Napier saw the girl subside. From time to time she looked over wistfully. In a general movement after luncheon, emptying and refilling the great room, he was able to time his going out so that he might catch a word with her.

"You have n't forgotten where I am?" she said hurriedly after they had allowed new-comers to separate them a little from their respective parties.

No, he had n't forgotten; but he had read that she-he nodded in Greta's direction-was also at the same hotel.

"And that keeps you away! That's all you care!"

"Do you want, then," he said, with