“What!”

[84]“And that he seems on very free and friendly terms with your wife.”

[84]

“With my wi—”

Alan Warburton stopped short and looked sharply at the eyes gazing out from behind the yellow mask.

Did this detective think himself conversing with Archibald? If so—well, what then? He shrank from anything like familiarity with this man before him. Why not leave the mistake as it stood? There could be no harm in it, and he, Alan, would thus be free from future annoyance.

“I will not remove my mask,” thought Alan. “He is not likely to see Archibald, and no harm can come of it. In fact it will be better so. It would seem more natural for him to be investigating his wife’s secrets than for me.”

So the mistake was not corrected—the mistake that was almost providential for Alan Warburton, but that proved a very false move in the game that Van Vernet was about to play.

There was but one flaw in the plan of the proposed incognito.

Alan’s voice was a peculiarly mellow tenor, and Van Vernet never forgot a voice once heard.

“Did you say that this disguised person knows—Mrs. Warburton?”

“I did.”

“Who is the fellow, and what disguise does he wear?”

“I am unable to give his name. He is costumed as the Goddess of Liberty.”

“Oh!”

Van Vernet had his own reasons for withholding Richard Stanhope’s name.

[85]“So!” he thought, while he waited for Alan’s next words. “I’ll spoil your plans for this night, Dick Stanhope! I wonder how our Chief will like to hear that ‘Stanhope the reliable,’ neglects his duty to go masquerading in petticoats, the better to make love to another man’s wife.”

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